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Calcutta, Aug. 3: The government and the Opposition today shared space outside the Assembly for the first time in Bengal in five years, coming together for an all-party meeting where the substantive issue of bifurcation of districts was discussed.
The healthy nature of the exchange of views — howsoever premature it could be — was evident later in the day when the government took note of cautionary voices and refrained from pushing through a plan to divide at least five districts in the state.
The Telegraph had reported on Saturday that the government was working on a proposal to divide five districts — North and South 24-Parganas, Jalpaiguri, West Midnapore and Burdwan.
The all-party meeting — Trinamul used to boycott such sessions since 2006 — also discussed a proposal to rename the state, which elicited several views. Conceding the points made by the Opposition and allies, chief minister Mamata Banerjee agreed to give more time to settle both issues.
She said deputy leader of the House Partha Chatterjee and leader of Opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra would seek suggestions from historians and linguists on what the state’s new name should be.
“We have asked everybody to give their opinion. This is being done for administrative reasons. We have not given any proposal about the name. Partha Chatterjee and Surjya Kanta Mishra will take the views of the experts and come up with suggestions in the next meeting,” Mamata said, Opposition leaders by her side. “The name should have a historical perspective and preserve the state’s heritage. We want a name that shouldn’t hurt anybody.”
Except for Trinamul ally SUCI (Communist), the other parties are agreed in principle to a name change.
The Left’s main objection was the government had not placed any formal proposal. “There was no proposal regarding the name…. If the government had placed any suggestions we could have discussed that,” Mishra said.
SUCI (Communist) state secretary Soumen Bose said: “If the creation of new districts doesn’t benefit the people, we won’t support it. We also feel that changing the state’s name is unnecessary.”
Mamata said several factors were behind the bifurcation decision. “Other states have more districts and get more funds. Population is increasing. There are geographical issues involved as well,” she said at Writers’.
“There is a proposal to bifurcate Burdwan into two districts, rural and industrial. The industrial (one) would comprise Asansol and Durgapur. Also, there is a proposal to bifurcate Jalpaiguri and create Alipurduar, create Jhargram from West Midnapore and bifurcate North 24-Parganas. Proposals for bifurcating Murshidabad and South 24-Parganas have also come up.”
Mamata ruled out changing East Midnapore’s name to Tamralipta. “It has been unanimously decided that East Midnapore’s name will not be changed,” she said.
At the meeting, Left leaders wanted to know how many districts the government was planning to create and where the funds would come from. “If infrastructure is not ready, the new districts will face problems,” Mishra said.
“We have suggested setting up an independent authority to work out details like which sub-division goes to which district,” Bengal Congress chief Pradip Bhattacharya said, adding his party was not against the bifurcation.
In another instance of co-operation between the government and the Opposition, Mamata invited Mishra to her room when he said his party wanted to know the details of the Darjeeling accord.
The next all-party meeting will be held on August 19.
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