Tag: Bengal elections

  • Bengal polls: Mamata will lose at Nandigram, claims Suvendu after casting vote

    By PTI
    NANDIGRAM: BJP’s heavyweight Nandigram candidate Suvendu Adhikary cast his vote soon after polling began on Thursday morning.

    Riding a bike, Adhikari went to the Nandanayak Bar Primary School around 7.30 to cast his vote.

    Speaking to reporters, he said that he was confident that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is contesting the elections against him from the Nandigram seat, will lose the polls.

    “I have a very old relationship with the people of the area. I have a personal relationship with almost every person in Nandigram. Pretty confident that I will win the election,” Adhikari said.

    “Entire villages have come out to vote in favour of the BJP,” he added.

    Adhikari said that he went to the polling booth on a bike as the road was too narrow for a car.

    “I will urge the people to come out early and cast their votes. There were reports of problems at some booths but those have now been solved. The polling is happening peacefully,” he said.

    He said that he will try to visit all the booths in the constituency.

    Further, the BJP leader claimed that the TMC has failed to depute agents in all the booths.

    “It shows that Mamata Banerjee will not be able to win the elections,” he said.

    Adhikari exercised his franchise for the first time in Nandigram after becoming a voter of the constituency ahead of the elections.

  • Suvendu Adhikari vs Mamata Banerjee: Nandigram talking point across Bengal

    Express News Service
    BOLPUR/SUIRI/RAMPURHAT,BIRBHUM:  Mamata Banerjee lit up Nandigram with a slogan that perhaps encapsulates where West Bengal is right now, in terms of the gap between its reality and its desire. “Cool cool Trinamool, thanda thanda cool, vote paabe jora phool,” she thundered, with an elan that TV advertising professionals would envy. Jora phool is the grass flower associated with the West Bengal Chief Minister’s party, the Trinamool. Will it get the votes? Therein hangs a tale.

    Now, West Bengal may well be renamed Nandigram. You must of course overlook a few distractions  like Amit Shah claiming a clean sweep, in arid Purulia. Or Mamata Banerjee actually demanding that the PM’s visa and passport be cancelled for having visited Orakandi in Bangladesh. Those distractions are quite a handful for an Assembly election, you think? Yes. But then, this is West Bengal.

    A little detour: Orakandi is revered by the Matua community, quite a vital component of the voters in three Bengal districts. Nobody here, among the intelligentsia, quite likes the fact that the name of caste has been taken. Bengal’s politics has always avoided it. And that’s the BJP’s opening. Bengal still speaks a universal language. It still responds to resonating phrases like ‘Amar Naam, Tomar Naam, Nandigram, Nandigram…’

    That’s not just a slogan, by the way. Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, Burdwan, Birbhum, 24 Parganas—districts which vote in the third and fourth phases or later seem somewhat indifferent about what happens to their own constituencies. But they’re not indifferent about Nandigram. Anywhere and everywhere, it’s difficult to get people focused on any other issue. The small talk all around— the small tea shops, the small man walking back after his day’s work in those rich rice fields invariably focuses on that one thing.

    It’s the Big Fight. The questions are: Is Didi panicking? Will Suvendu Adhikari pull it off ? Will Nandigram again be the turning point of Bengal’s political history? It’s quite the local thriller. If you so much as mildly declare that you have been to the epicentre and have come out in one piece, you may very well get a discount at a sweet shop, or at Sonajuri haat, Santiniketan. 

    Old stories form part of new narrative

    “What did you see there? Tell us, please. You can pay me later!” Dulal Basak, with that incredulous look on his face, could be the face of the rest of Bengal. He has that look of having accidentally met an astronaut just back from the moon.

    Myths abound. That the Adhikaris virtually own Nandigram. That Didi is liberating it the second time over. Or just the opposite: that TMC atrocities have touched such heights that only the BJP can save the people. Nandigram, seven years since the violence against that old farmland acquisition felled even a Left government, is back haunting public memory.

    For all the contrary feelings that thought may evoke, it’s also influencing voting decisions across districts. Perhaps not even the voter knows where her finger may pass, such are the sentiments here. It’s rich political drama.

    Even the long-forgotten Laxman Seth, the erstwhile CPI-M MLA, the villain of the piece in 2007, under whose watch the police firing took place in which over a dozen got killed in 2007, the man you could arguably blame for the Left’s near comatose state in India…even he has come out of the woodwork. And he’s not even contesting, but that’s half the story.

    Now, Laxman Seth was called a ‘harmand’ (goon) those days, maybe not without reason. And he was not heard of after a failed attempt to revive his political career in 2019, when he contested the Tamluk parliamentary seat on a Congress ticket. Congress? Yes. The CPI-M had expelled him in 2014, and he had then joined the BJP, before his compass shifted again. Tamluk is his old fort, the place where he’d defeated Sisir Adhikari in 2004. No relation to Suvendu, you ask? Of course, he’s the father, also old Congress stock, was MoS for rural development by the way under Manmohan Singh.

    Why are these old stories important? Because they’re part of the narrative in 2021. It’s not so much party politics, as much as the underlying economic issues. Laxman Seth has been giving interviews. And been touching a chord with a rural Bengal that, contrarily, also wants industrialisation. A Bengal that doesn’t want to go to Kerala and Bangalore just to have a job.

    “All political parties are the same. When they first come to power, they make promises of a better system, but later the same bad elements come to rule the roost,” says Ranjit Das, a voter in Bolpur constituency in Birbhum. He cites the Nandigram trajectory and draws parallels with the local politics in his constituency.

    This disillusionment is commonly heard in and around the Visva Bharati campus, perhaps even more keenly in the crafts markets adjacent to Santiniketan. The artisanal markets that dot the now burgeoning campus city may have only an ironic resemblance with things that Tagore said. The poet is mostly to be found caged in photo frames, sold at every street corner. He wanted the world to come to the country. In a way, the country wants the same.

    The elections themselves are a local Mahabharata—a distraction, almost. Who has joined whom? That’s the talk everywhere. The protagonists of Nandigram or the general trend of TMC MLAs and other sundry heavyweights switching camps, that’s what everyone talks about. This is the place that gave India Mir Jafar.

    If Purba Medinipur—of which Nandigram is one of the 16 Assembly constituencies is seen as Adhikari turf, Birbhum’s 11 Assembly constituencies are considered a stronghold of the TMC. If Suvendu, and his father Sisir in particular, have a deep hold over that neck of the woods, Birbhum is the playfield of TMC district in charge Anubrata Mandal, a local toughie.

    The Adhikharis were perceived to be the last word in their bastion, while they were in TMC Mamata allowed their writ to run. (It’s just coincidental that they happen to be on the other side now.) But that federal approach is true about Birbhum too, they say. Whether in Rampur, Siuri or Santiniketan, the refrain is that “she’s too indulgent of ” Anubrata Mandal. In short, what the Adhikaris are or were to Nandigram, Mandal is to Birbhum. “Not a leaf moves without him raising his finger,” they say.

    Didi’s allegation that it was the Adhikaris who got the “police in chappals” into Nandigram in 2007 and that’s what led to the mayhem—finds odd resonance here. It’s almost a mythological narrative that gets repeated everywhere. Facts? They belong to another planet. Myths have a self-sustaining life of their own. There are stories about how many got killed, about dead children filled into sacks, about truckloads of dead bodies hidden under vegetables. The mass hysteria around has been reignited, in different ways.

    “Didi allows Anubrata to manage this outpost in the same way,” quips a Visva Bharati lecturer, who would rather not be named. The current V-C here, Bidyut Chakrabarty, makes no secret of his support to the BJP and the Prime Minister. It’s fairly overt. But there’s tangible tension on the ground. It’s often, but not necessarily party-related.

    The young, for one, have no qualms at all. Deepak, a biotech student from the nearby Puralia, feels a “change” would be good for Bengal—it would bring industry and jobs. “We don’t want to go out of the state to look for employment. Bengal should be an industrial leader again. We can’t be doing artisanal work or cottage industry like our parents for all time. There’s no future in small scale,” he says. Maybe Mahatma Gandhi should have been alive to hear his idea of ‘paribartan’.

    Birbhum is of course a TMC fortress, controlled by Mandal with an iron fist. Everyone agrees it’s impregnable. But local street cred is not the only factor. The CAA is an issue here, and it gives the TMC a fillip. Both the Hindus who migrated from then East Bengal and the original Muslim settlers here cite the Assam NRC fiasco. “We may also be thrown out or our names may go missing! Most of us don’t have old papers,” says Subhas. It’s not about religion here, as the national narrative goes, but about the precarity of life that all have faced equally.

    The students at Kalabhavan still have a whiff of Left idealism, and have their own story to tell—one of resistance, and of standing to safeguard Bengal’s cultural ethos. Anirban Ganguly, the BJP Bolpur candidate, rubbishes those as “wayward western thoughts”. Tagore? Keep him to a side. “Our central leaders have closely studied culture and thought process,” claims Ganguly.

    That’s where the aspirational middle class is, even if they’re not big in numbers. One of them, an old neighbour of TMC’s Anubrata Mandal, predicts that the BJP will get 4 out of 11 seats here, and three more after the elections are over! “Khela hobe,” he quips.

  • Trinamool worker stabbed to death in Bengal’s Keshpur, seven arrested

    By PTI
    KESHPUR: A Trinamool Congress worker was allegedly stabbed to death in West Bengal’s Paschim Medinipur district in the early hours of Thursday, hours before polling started in the area, police said.

    Uttam Dolui, 48, was at a local club in Hariharpur in the district’s Keshpur area along with a few others when around 10-15 people allegedly attacked him with sharp weapons, they said.

    He died on the way to a hospital in Midnapore, they added.

    Dolui’s family alleged that BJP “goons” attacked him to create tension in the area and intimidate voters ahead of the polling.

    The BJP dismissed the allegations, saying they have no reason for resorting to violence as they are confident about winning the Keshpur seat.

    The incident triggered tension in the area, which has a history of political violence.

    The Election Commission said that a report has been sought from district authorities over the incident.

    Forces have been deployed in the locality to check any further flare-up, police said.

    Seven people have been arrested in connection with the incident, they said.

    A further investigation is underway, police said.

    Keshpur is voting in the second phase of the assembly elections with polling starting at 7 am.

  • Mixed response to Mamata’s mid-poll pitch on Opposition unity, BJP hits back at Bengal CM

    By Express News Service
    KOLKATA/NEW DELHI/PATNA/MUMBAI: Accusing the BJP of trying to establish a one-party “authoritarian rule’’ in the country, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday wrote to top Opposition leaders urging them to unite to defend democracy.

    Her letter came ahead of the second phase of Assembly elections in West Bengal and it is being seen as an initiative to drum up Opposition support against the BJP, which is the main rival of the ruling Trinamool Congress in the ongoing polls.

    Her call drew mixed reactions within the Opposition with the Congress choosing to remain silent, though regional parties like the RJD, NC P, AAP and SP extended full support.

    “I strongly believe that that the time has come for a united and effective struggle against the BJP’s attack on democracy and the Constitution. We can win this battle only with the unity of hearts and mind and by presenting a credible alternative to the people of India,’’ she wrote.

    In the three-page letter, Mamata appealed to non-BJP leaders, including Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, ailing NC P founder Sharad Pawar, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, DMK chief M K Stalin, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik RJD chief Tejashwi Yadav, Andhra Pradesh CM Jagan Mohan Reddy, PDP head Mehbooba Mufti, CPI(ML) chief Dipankar Bhattacharya and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav. She, however, did not write to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, who had fancied his chances in the past at leading a third front.

    Hitting back at the Bengal CM, BJP on Wednesday said that democracy should be the last word in her dictionary .

    “Democracy should be the last word in @MamataOfficial & @AITCofficial dictionary. Their cadre attack @BJP4Bengal candidates, intimidate voters, capture booths, block all hoardings and at the end leaders preach Democracy,” BJP general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh tweeted.

    Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot supported Banerjee, saying he has echoed the same issues many times.

    “What Mamta Banerjee has said is right that the central government is working to weaken states. The Centre should think to strengthen the states instead of weakening them,” Gehlot, who is in Assam campaigning for the assembly polls, told PTI over phone.

    He was reacting to a letter written by Banerjee to non-BJP leaders, including Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, wherein she alleged that the Centre-state relations were at its worst since independence.

    As she faces a high-stakes poll battle in West Bengal, Banerjee said the time has come for a “united and effective” struggle against the BJP’s alleged attacks on democracy and the Constitution, and that opposition leaders should try present a “credible alternative” to the people of the country.

    Gehlot asserted that he has raised the same concerns inside and outside the assembly.

    “Democracy in the country is under threat and people should understand its gravity,” he said.

    The senior Congress leader said the Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax department and other agencies are working under pressure from the central government, adding that those who express disagreement are labelled “anti-nationals”.

    PDP president Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday said it is imperative for the opposition parties in the country to unite in order to protect democracy and its cherished values.

    She also said the need of the hour is to put up a collective fight against the “onslaught”.

    “Agree with @MamataOfficial di that in order to protect our democracy & its cherished values it is imperative for the opposition parties to unite,” the PDP president wrote on Twitter.

    She also shared a copy of her letter written in response to Banerjee’s communication.

    “Thank you for reaching out to me. I share & understand your apprehensions about the central government undermining the federal framework that has been guaranteed by the Indian Constitution,” Mufti said in her response.

    The former J-K chief minister alleged that the recent GNCTD bill is yet another example of how BJP is “bulldozing” its opponents by using its “brute majority” to pass and implement bills.

    “This process started in 2019 with the dismemberment of Jammu and Kashmir and stripping it of its special status which was again a constitutional guarantee. Unfortunately, not many in the opposition used their collective power & voice to oppose this unilateral & illegal step,” Mufti alleged.

    She also referred to the detention of political leaders and alleged harassment by central probe agencies.

    “Therefore, the need of the hour is to unite & put up a collective fight against this onslaught,” she added.

    (With PTI Inputs)

  • Bengal polls: 200 more companies of central forces to reach poll-bound state by April 8

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The Election Commission of India (ECI) is bringing in another 200 companies of central forces by April 8 as part of the measures to conduct free and fair elections in West Bengal, a senior official said on Wednesday.

    He said that the 800 companies of central forces have already been deployed in the state where the first of the eight-phase of assembly election was held on March 27 and the second one will be conducted on Thursday.

    “The 200 companies of central forces will be reaching West Bengal by April 8. No decision has been taken on how to utilise them and their deployment,” the official said.

    However, chances are that they will be deployed in Alipurduar and Cooch Behar districts where elections will be held in the fourth phase on April 10, he said.

  • Mamata Banerjee scared as she is set to lose Nandigram to BJP: Nadda ahead of polling in constituency

    By Express News Service
    KOLKATA: BJP’s national president JP Nadda said on Wednesday that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was scared as she has realised that she is set to lose the Nandigram seat to BJP.

    While addressing a rally in Hooghly district, Nadda said, “Mamata didi is scared. She has realised she is losing Nandigram. Suvendu (Adhikari) was elected from here in 2016 Assembly elections. He did not come here as an outsider. It is Mamata who has come and now she will lose here a well.’’

    All eyes in Bengal are focused on Nandigram, the epicenter of the Assembly elections, which is going to the polls on Thursday. Mamata is contesting against her once-trusted lieutenant Suvendu.

    ALSO READ | High polling percentage proof change of guard imminent in West Bengal, says JP Nadda

    Hitting out at Mamata on the issue of women’s safety and lawlessness in Bengal, Nadda said, “West Bengal is number one in terms of kidnapping of women, attempt to murder and unsolved missing cases. Two tribal girls were raped in Jalpaiguri but no action was taken. What have the people raising Maa, Mati, Manush slogan have done for women?”

    Reiterating BJP’s Hindutva rhetoric, Nadda accused Mamata of imposing a “curfew” during the foundation stone laying ceremony of Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

    “Curfew was imposed in Bengal hen Prime Minister Narendra Modi was laying the foundation stone of Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Should we let it continue? Should a grant temple of Lord Ram be made in Ayodhya or not?’’ he asked.  

    The BJP chief reiterated that his party will derail Mamata’s government by bagging more than 200 seats.

    “We will cross the 200-seat target. The people have Bengal have come forward to defeat Mamata Banerjee. They are sending a message against extortion and cut-money,’’ he said.

  • Mamata has lost ground in Bengal, speaking of ‘gotra’ is sign of desperation: Javadekar

    Javadekar claimed that the people of the state have already made up their mind to bring the BJP to power and the Lok Sabha election result indicated the people #39;s will to reject Banerjee.

  • ‘Suvendu Adhikari harbouring criminals to create violence during polls’: Trinamool to EC

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress on Monday lodged a complaint with the Election Commission, alleging that Nandigram BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari is harbouring criminals and putting them up in different hotels and guest houses of West Bengal.

    In a letter to the chief electoral officer, TMC leader Derek O’Brien claimed that in spite of the local police being apprised of this, no action had been taken.

    Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also the TMC boss, is locked in a fierce contest with her protege-turned- adversary Adhikari in Nandigram in East Midnapore district, which goes to polls in the second phase on April 1.

    In a separate letter to the CEO, the ruling party said there have been instances of booth capturing and rigging during the first phase of polls held on March 27, adding that “anti-social elements” of the BJP are camping in the district to “create large-scale violence”.

    The TMC urged the commission to take these “criminals” into preventive custody in the interest of free and fair polls.

    The party also demanded that there should be no deployment of armed police personnel from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and other BJP-ruled states during the remaining seven phases of the assembly polls.

  • ‘Greedy Suvendu Adhikari na ghar ka na ghat ka’: Mamata slams arch-rival in Nandigram

    Express News Service
    KOLKATA: The wheelchair-bound Mamata Banerjee on Monday held a roadshow along an 8 km stretch under a blazing sun in Nandigram, the epicentre of Bengal’s high-octane poll from where she is contesting her ex-aide Suvendu Adhikari. 

    “Too much greed is not good. They will be ‘na ghar ka na ghat ka’ (who is stuck in the middle and does not belong to either of the sides). He (Adhikari) is doing whatever he wants. I can play games too. I can also respond like a lion. I am a Royal Bengal Tiger,” The TMC supremo slammed Adhikari.

    She also slammed PM Narendra Modi on the issue of the alleged conspiracy leading to her leg injury. “No one from Nandigram attacked me but you (BJP) brought goons from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. We want a free and fair election.”

    ALSO READ | Amit Shah should focus on UP, Bengal doesn’t tolerate violence against women: Mamata Banerjee

    Mamata was injured in Nandigram shortly after she filed her nomination. She was greeting the crowd standing on the footboard of her vehicle and her leg was crushed against the front door due to the push from the crowd.

    In a prompt reaction, she, without naming the BJP, said the mishap was the fallout of a conspiracy. The next day, in a video message from the hospital, she said it was her supporters who came close to her vehicle and she got caught between the front door and the seat. But during poll campaigns, she reiterated that the incident was a BJP plot .

    She countered Adkhikari who had termed her as an ‘outsider’. “You are branding me as an outsider and claiming yourself as a Bhumiputra (son of the soil). Are you from Nandigram? No. You are from Contai which is not in the periphery of Nandigram.”

    During her poll campaigns, Mamata had lavelled BJP’s national leaders as a bunch of ‘outsiders’ in Bengal.

  • BJP worker’s mother, who was allegedly attacked by TMC workers in February, dies

    By ANI
    NORTH 24 PARGANAS: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker from Nimta, Gopal Majumdar’s 85-year-old mother, Shobha Majumdar, who was allegedly beaten up by Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers last month in the North 24 Parganas district, died in the wee hours of Monday.

    Taking to Twitter, BJP National President JP Nadda said: “I wish peace to Nimta’s old mother Shobha Majumdar’s soul. She had to sacrifice her life for her son Gopal Majumdar being in BJP. BJP will always remember her sacrifice. She was Bengal’s ‘mother’ as well as its ‘daughter’. BJP will always fight for the safety of Bengal’s mothers and daughters.”

    Union Home Minister Amit Shah also condoled the death of the octagenarian mother of the BJP candidate, saying her death will haunt West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for long.

    “Anguished over the demise of Bengal’s daughter Shova Majumdar ji, who was brutally beaten by TMC goons. The pain & wounds of her family will haunt Mamata didi for long. Bengal will fight for a violence-free tomorrow, Bengal will fight for a safer state for our sisters & mothers,” he said.

    Gopal Majumdar had alleged last month that three TMC workers attacked his house and attacked his mother.

    “They hit me on my head and neck. They punched on my face too. I am scared. They asked me not to tell anyone about it. My whole body is in pain,” Shobha Majumdar had earlier told ANI.

    Following the attack, several BJP leaders including Suvendu Adhikari had visited Shobha’s residence to take her to the hospital. She was being treated at a private hospital and had returned to her home four days ago.

    Following her death, BJP candidate in Dumdam Uttar constituency Dr Archana Majumdar blamed TMC activists for the attack.

    Her son Gopal also stated that if she was not attacked last month, she would have lived a few more days.

    Gopal, who had earlier lost his father, said that he has become completely alone after losing his mother.

    Political violence has been regularly making headlines in poll-bound West Bengal, as the state moves on to the second phase of the assembly elections.