Ahead of the grassroots polls in West Bengal, veteran CPI(M) leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Tuesday vowed to fight for the revival of panchayats which, he said, have been rendered 'ineffective' by the Trinamool Congress government.
"We take credit for setting up the panchayat system in West Bengal and we want to tell the Trinamool Congress in clear terms that we have not left the electoral battleground," Bhattacharjee told a Left Front rally here in South 24 Parganas district.
"We will not let panchayats die a slow death. We will revive them after the polls," he said. Claiming that people were disappointed at the functioning of the Trinamool Congress government which has taken away the powers of panchayats and rural bodies, he asked, "Is this the paribartaan (change) that the Trinamool has ushered in West Bengal?"
