Siliguri, 31st December: Two brothers are pitted against each other in Siliguri Municipal Corporation elections where the electorate has to be make do with this “peculiar situation”.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded Kanhaiya Pathak and against him is Sanjay Pathak who is the Trinamool Congress candidate. Both the brothers have entered the fray to defeat each other, making the electoral battle in Siliguri’s Ward No. 01 an interesting one.
Sanjay Pathak, who was also in BJP, joined Congress. He was given a ticket by Congress in the year 2009 from Ward No. 01 and was also victorious. He served as the Ward Councilor of Congress from 2009 to 2014. However, with the change of events, he later joined Trinamool Congress. Following this, in the Siliguri Municipal Corporation election – 2014, TMC gave him a ticket from Ward No. 03, but he had to face defeat. Nonetheless, the party has once again bestowed faith in him and has given him a ticket from Ward No. 01.
Likewise, BJP candidate Kanhaiya Pathak started his political career as a Congress Chhatra Parishad activist. After this, in the year 2014, Kanhaiya Pathak joined the BJP. Presently he is one of the influential leaders of the party and has been given the ticket from Ward No. 01.
In this context, TMC candidate Sanjay Pathak said, “I have a deep connection with the people of this ward. Everyone here is his brother. Our main fight is not with the BJP but with the RSP candidate.”
On the other hand, Kanhaiya Pathak also did not comment much on the situation and left the public to decide their fate.
Adding to this, Sanjay Pathak’s elder brother and Darjeeling District Congress leader Rajeev Pathak said that politics and family relations have a separate place.
While the brothers avoided making any personal comments, but the political heat has definitely increased between the two cousins ahead of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation elections.