Kolkata, Apr 06: Failing to get recognition from the Election Commission for his outfit, suspended Trinamool Congress MP Ajit Panja today floated a platform 'mukta mancha' apparently to provide a base to the dissident TC as well as BJP activists to contest the next month's crucial panchayat election in West Bengal. Panja, chairman of his faction of Trinamool Congress, said that anyone could join this 'mancha' and contest the panchayat poll. ''but since we have not got the recognition, the candidates will have to fight as independents'', he said adding that it was only a platform and not a political party. The suspended TC leader who was with BJP even when Mamata Banerjee had severed ties with it before the last assembly polls, also had a word of caution for the BJP for again joining hands with her for the panchayat election. "I don't know whether the state BJP has realised its mistakes of going with her. If they did not realise it, I have nothing to say'', Panja said. His statement however drew a flak from the state BJP president Tathagata Roy.

Roy said that instead of calling it a 'mukta mancha', Panja should have called it a platform of the dissidents.

Bureau Report