CPI-M leadership needs to be restructured: Rezzak Mollah

Accusing the Trinamool Congress of rigging the third phase of the West Bengal panchayat polls, CPI-M leader Abdur Rezzak Mollah Friday called for restructuring of his own party's leadership.

"There is total rigging. I have been hearing bombings since early morning. I don't think there was rigging during my time but there were instances of proxy votes," Mollah told a TV channel while voting in Canning in South 24-Parganas here.

Three neighbouring districts of Kolkata - North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Howrah - will Friday elect some 13,000 representatives to the village councils, the third tier of India's electoral democracy.

Nearly one crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in 12,656 booths in round three of the five-phase polls in the state.

Asked about the absence of CPI-M cadres and the red flags that are symbolic of the party, Mollah called for re-organisation and restructuring of the party if it had to return to power.

"The leadership needs to to be re-organised and restructured, then only can the party turn its tides," said Mollah.

Mollah, the land reforms minister in the erstwhile Left Front regime, is known as a loose cannon in political circles for his out-of-turn attacks against a section of the party leadership, especially former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and ex-industries minister Nirupam Sen.

During his tenure as minister, Mollah openly protested against the land acquisition procedure followed in Singur in Hooghly district for the Nano car plant of Tata Motors.