Cong bats for sitting MLAs

Bhuniya said that he does not want a situation like 2001,when most of the sitting MLAs were denied tickets. At present there are 19 sitting MLAs of the Congress,including Bhuniya. On the issue of delimitation of seats for Assembly elections,Bhuniya said that delimination does not mean that a seat has vanished,it means that areas have been absorbed in other seats. According to political observers,the Congress is stressing on seats for sitting MLAs to keep a pressure on the coalition partner.

Despite meetings between Trinamool Congress Chief Mamata Banerjee and Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee much has not been decided about seat sharing. The WBPCC has come to a consensus that they will demand one third of the 294 Assembly seats.

EC team in Midnapore

The second round of Election Commission observers’ visits in various districts of the state started today with two members of the team heading off for East Midnapore in the afternoon. While P S Ranpise,the DIG of Orissa,and Jitendra Prasad,IG (CID) of Andhra Pradesh,will visit areas in East Midnapore,about which the commission has received complaints from the Left party,the leader of the team and CEO of Bihar Sudhir Kumar Rakesh will head off for another district tomorrow morning. Two more members of the team are likely to reach the state on February 13,after which the team will also visit Darjeeling.