BJP to contest panchayat polls

GANGTOK, 17 July: National Executive Member and the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] State In-charge for Sikkim, Indirasena Reddy, who is on a three-day tour of the State interacted with the media-persons here at the BJP office at Tadong today.
Speaking to the press, he stated that the BJP will be contesting the upcoming Panchayat Elections scheduled to be held in the state in September-October. “I had come on a visit to Sikkim and during our executive party meeting we decided to contest the coming Panchayat Elections to be held in Sikkim”, said Mr Reddy.
“We will be fielding candidates for all the wards and the party will not be getting into an alliance with any other party,” he said and added that with this local body election the BJP wants to enter the villages and strengthen the party and prepare the ground for the next Assembly elections. He informed that the party was confident of giving a good show during the Panchayat elections.
“There are tremendous anti-incumbency factors playing against the Chamling government and the people are thinking of an alternate who can fight the present Chief Minister without any compromise, particularly with regards to corruption, price rise, farmer’s issues, illegal site alotments, students’ issues and other public issues,” he contended.
The Sikkim State In-charge further informed that to strengthen the party, he will be visiting Sikkim again in the month of August and will also be here during the Panchayat elections.
“We will be holding further meetings regarding the same and after the poll dates are announced we will start our campaigning,” informed the BJP President, Sikkim Unit, Padam Chettri. He added that the party is taking the upcoming panchayat elections seriously and will start campaigning from the first week of August.