News Analysis India

Tag: BJP

  • West Bengal polls: BJP worker’s mother killed by TMC goons in Goghat, alleges Tathagata Roy

    By ANI
    KOLKATA: Former Governor of Tripura and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Tathagata Roy on Tuesday claimed that a BJP worker’s mother was killed allegedly by “TMC goons” in Goghat in Hooghly district of the poll-bound West Bengal.

    “In Goghat in Hooghly district of West Bengal, Piru Adak, a BJP worker was attacked by Trinamool goons. When his mother Madhavi tried to save him the goons attacked and killed her,” tweeted Roy. The polling for the Goghat constituency is being held on Tuesday in the third phase of the West Bengal assembly polls.

    In Goghat,Distt Hooghly,West Bengal Piru Adak,a BJP worker was attacked by Trinamool goons. When his mother Madhavi tried to save him the goons attacked and killed her.
    — Tathagata Roy (@tathagata2) April 6, 2021

    A total of 31 Assembly constituencies in districts including eight in Hooghly, seven in Howrah and 16 in South 24 Parganas are going to polls in phase-III. There are 205 candidates in the fray in this round of polling. However, when it comes to women representation, there are only 13 women candidates contesting in this phase, merely six per cent.

    Meanwhile, polling has now begun at booth number 129 of AC 200 in Arambag, Hooghly on Tuesday. Voters are been standing in the queue while maintaining the COVID protocols.

    Polling for the first two phases of the West Bengal elections were held on March 27 and April 1 respectively. The fourth phase of polling will take place on April 10. The counting of votes will take place on May 2.

  • Assembly elections phase three: Congress, allies hold edge in minority-heavy lower Assam

    Express News Service
    GUWAHATI: The Congress-led grand alliance appears to have an edge over the BJP-led ruling alliance in the 40 constituencies where the third and final phase of Assam elections will be held on Tuesday.These seats are spread across lower Assam.

    In the 2016 elections in these seats, BJP and Congress had won 11 each. Bengali-speaking Muslims, considered to be the vote bank of Congress and the minority-based AIUDF, are large majorities in several of these seats.

    Congress heads the 10-party grand alliance, which also has AIUDF and BPF as components.

    In 2016, they did not have an alliance among them. BPF was a BJP ally then.In 14 of the state’s 126 seats, the combined vote share of Congress-AIUDF was more than that of the winning candidates from BJP or its ally AGP. Four of these constituencies are going to polls on Tuesday.

    There is a perception that the Congress-AIUDF deal will prevent the split of anti-BJP votes.

    Another factor that could harm BJP is its decision to sever ties with BPF. The saffron party has found a new ally in United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR). In 2016, BPF had won all 12 seats in BTR.

    Eight of these are going to polls in the third phase. BPF, which ruled the autonomous Bodoland Territorial Council for 17 successive years till last December, is expected to give UPPL a run for its money.

    Key constituencies in this phase are Jalukbari, Patacharkuchi, Dharmapur and Bongaigaon. Jalukbari is held by the BJP’s strongman and minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. BJP state president Ranjeet Kumar Dass is contesting from Patacharkuchi.

    He had won the last election from Sorbhog.The first two phases of polling in 47 and 39 constituencies had recorded voter turnouts of 79.97 per cent and 80.96 per cent, respectively. 

    Three arrested for attacking EVM truck 

    Silchar (Assam): Three persons were arrested for allegedly attacking a truck carrying reserve EVMs in Cachar district during the second phase of polling, a police officer said on Monday.

    The police have identified more than 20 people for their alleged involvement in the incident which occurred at Jhapirbond near the National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project.

  • Bengal polls: Big fight for BJP in Trinamool’s bastion in phase three as election enters crucial stage

    Express News Service
    KOLKATA: In the first two phases on elections in West Bengal, BJP was in comfort zone. Polls were held in places like Junglemhal and East Midnapore.

    In the first, they had done well in 2019 Lok Saba elections. In the second, they have gained significantly in man power in recent times, notable being the inclusion of Suvenu Adhikari.

    In the third phase on Tuesday, BJP enters a tough terrain.  

    The 31 constituencies of this phase are TMC’s strongholds in the districts of South 24 Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly, where the saffron camp is desperate to hoist its flag. In the 2016 Assembly elections, TMC had won 30 of these 31 seats.

    Even during the saffrown wave in Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP had secured lead only in two of these seats. 

    “Real test of our strength in south Bengal will begin from Tuesday. In the first two phases, we enjoyed the result of our impressive performance in Junglemahal and in East Midnapore. Adhikari, Mamata Banerjee’s once-trusted aide, controls East Midnapore we rode his support base. But now, we are going for an eyeball-to-eyeball conflict in TMC’s citadel in southern Bengal districts. All 31 seats will be a challenge for our party,’’ admitted a senior BJP leader. 

    All seven Assembly constituencies under the Parliamentary seat of Diamond Harbour will go polls in this phase. Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee is the MP from this seat.

    “We lambasted the Bengal chief minister on the issue of her nephew.  Our national leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, never missed the opportunity to hit out at Abhishek on the issue of corruption and siphoning off relief fund for cyclone Amphan victims. This third phase covering vast parts of the Amphan-ravaged area in South 24 Parganas is crucial. The electorates’ political alignment will reflect whether our campaign attacking Mamata on the aunt-nephew issue has worked or not,’’ he said. 

    In a move to counter BJP’s deployment of actor Mithun Chakrabarty in poll campaign, the TMC held a roadshow with  actor turned Samajwadi Party’s Rajya Sabha MP Jaya Bachhan.

    She will again be part of other roadshows in southern Bengal districts in next few days, where polls will be conducted in coming phases.

    “My party leader Akhilesh Yadav asked me to come here to give my support to Trinamool Congress. I have utmost love and respect for Mamataji, a single woman fighting against all atrocities,’’ said Jaya, who is a Bengali and lived in the state  before shifting to Mumbai.

    TMC leaders said the presence of the actor in roadshows will not only blunt BJP’s attempt to bank on Mithun’s stardom but also secure electoral dividend in favour of the party to some extent. “No one can say we have brought an outsider. Jayaji is a daughter of Bengal,’’ said a TMC leader.

  • Middleman in Rafale deal kicks up dogfight between Congress and BJP

    Express News Service
    NEW DELHI: The newly inducted Rafale fighter jets flew into a fresh storm with a French online journal claiming that manufacturer Dassault Aviation paid 1 million euro to an Indian middleman as gift after the Rs 58,000 crore government-to-government deal in 2016 for 36 jets for the Indian Air Force.

    The suspect payment was detected by French anti-corruption agency, Agence Française Anticorruption (AFA), during audit, revealed Mediapart.

    It identified the recipient as Defsys Solutions, a group run by a Gupta family, including Sushen Gupta, who has been under investigation over his role in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper scam.

    The report kicked up a political storm with Congress demanding a thorough probe and the BJP rejecting charges of corruption as completely baseless.

    AFA inspectors came across the suspect payment of 508,925 euros under the head gifts to clients, for which Dassault produced an invoice from Defsys.

    Mediapart, citing the AFA report, said, “This invoice, which related to 50% of the total order (1,017,850), was for the manufacture of 50 (mega sized) models of the Rafale C, with a price per unit of €20,357.”

    Chief Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala claimed that the report has proved that there was corruption in the biggest defence deal, and asked why action should not be taken against those involved, including Dassault Aviation, for violating the defence procurement procedure, which clearly entails that there will be no middlemen.

    Hitting back at the Congress, BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad dismissed as “completely baseless” the allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal and said the opposition party made a big issue of the defence deal in 2019 Lok Sabha polls but lost badly.

    The Supreme Court had rejected a demand for a probe in the purchase of the fighter aircraft and the CAG also found nothing wrong, Prasad said.

    The allegations of corruption were “completely baseless”, the minister said, and suggested that a report in the French media about the alleged financial irregularity in the deal may be due to “corporate rivalry” in that country.

    According to the Mediapart, its report was based on an investigation by the country’s anti-corruption agency Agence Francaise Anticorruption (AFA), which found that after inking the deal, payment was made by the Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of Rafale fighter jets.

    As per the report, the manufacturer has not been able to answer the queries posed by the AFA.

    There was no immediate reaction from the Defence ministry on the French media report.

    Surjewala said their leader Rahul Gandhi’s oft-repeated allegations of corruption in the deal were proved correct now.

    He said as per the French portal’s report, an investigation conducted AFA has revealed that after signing of the deal in 2016, Rafale’s manufacturer Dassault allegedly paid 1.1 million euros to Defsys Solutions, which is an Indian company.

    “Does it now not require a full and independent investigation into India’s biggest defence deal to find out as to how much bribery and commission in reality, if any, was paid and to whom in the Indian government,” he asked at a press conference.

    “Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi answer to the nation now?” he asked.

    In his counter-attack, Prasad said,”the Congress is raising the Rafale issue again. It lost in the Supreme Court. They campaigned in the 2019 polls on the Rafale issue, threw all kinds of abuses at the prime minister and still lost. How many seats did it get.”

    The minister also noted that Sushen Gupta, the middleman whose name has cropped up in the French report on the Rafale deal, was arrested in the AgustaWestland case by the Enforcement Directorate in 2019.

    In this probe, the names of many Congress leaders had surfaced, Prasad said and accused the Congress of trying to “weaken” the security forces.

    The Indian Air Force received a fleet of fighter aircraft in Rafale after 30 years, he said, adding that had it been there during the time of the Balakot operation to target terrorists in Pakistan then Indian aircraft would not have to cross the borders to carry out the strike.

    The Congress leader said the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) as also the stated Indian government policy envisage that there will be an Integrity Clause in every defence purchase contract which clearly states that there can be no middleman or payment of commission or bribe.

    Surjewala said that as per the DPP, any evidence of middleman or commission or bribery has serious penal consequences including the banning of the supplier, cancellation of contract, registration of an FIR and imposition of heavy financial penalties on the company.

    “Has it not vitiated the Rafale deal entailing imposition of heavy financial penalties on Dassault, banning of the company, registration of an FIR and other penal consequences,” he asked, while citing the example of Agusta Westland chopper deal where the CBI has already initiated action.

    He asked whether the payment of 1.1 million euros shown by Dassault as ‘Gifts to Clients’ in reality a commission paid to the middleman for the Rafale deal.

    “How can middleman and payment of commission be permitted in a government-to-government Defence Contract or in any Defence procurement in India in violation of the mandatory Defence Procurement Procedure,” he asked.

    The Congress leader alleged that “India’s biggest defence deal involving the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from the Dassault Aviation is a sordid saga of ‘loss to public exchequer, squandering national interests, propagating the culture of crony capitalism and shrouded in secrecy by negating the mandatory aspects of procurement.

    ” Alleging that there was lack of transparency and opaqueness in this government, Surjewala claimed that the Prime Minister went ahead and purchased the aircraft without following any procedure, and has also refused to submit himself to an investigation.

    The government did not provide full documents to the CAG, he claimed.

    “India has a no middleman, no commission stated policy. Why can’t the present Prime Minister order an impartial investigation now, so that we know who in his Government took the bribe and the commission and how many thousand crores, if any,” he said.

    Asked what would be the next step of the Congress, he said, “we will wait for next 48 hours for the Government to react and then take the next step.

    (With PTI Inputs)

  • Man held in UP for creating fake Facebook group in Maneka Gandhi’s name

    By PTI
    SULTANPUR: A man was arrested on Monday for allegedly creating a fake Facebook group in the name of Sultanpur BJP MP Maneka Gandhi and posting misleading information in it, police said.

    Based on a complaint by Gandhi’s representative Ranjit Kumar on Sunday, an FIR was lodged under Section 66 of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008, Inspector Bhupendra Singh said.

    The accused, identified as Sonu Sahani, was arrested from Lucknow.

    Sahni had created the fake group on Facebook and posted a job advertisement in it.

    The inspector said a probe into the matter was underway.

  • Breaking cycle of violence, corruption key to Bengal’s economic revival: BJP’s Dinesh Trivedi

    By PTI
    KOLKATA: The culture of violence and corruption is holding West Bengal back despite the state having a formidable army of skilled labour, trained engineers and professionals, and vast natural resources, former Union Minister Dinesh Trivedi, who recently switched over to the BJP, said.

    He said job creation, infrastructure building and harnessing Bengal’s standing as a knowledge hub to build industry, will be among the focus areas for the BJP, if it comes to power in the state.

    The 71-year-old former minister said the party expects investment in infrastructure to create jobs and the pull needed to attract the industry.

    Development of highways, railways, ports and airports will all create the jobs, he said. “Bengal is a knowledge hub, yet we have failed to cash in on that to transform the state industrially and create jobs. There is scope to build a parallel Silicon Valley here given the number of software engineers the state trains every year,” he said in an interview with PTI.

    The Left Front government which preceded TMC had set up an IT hub in Salt Lake, but it is considered a paler version of Bangalore, the IT and start-up capital of the country. Software techies from Bengal’s engineering colleges and universities continue to throng IT hubs elsewhere in the country and abroad, he said.

    Trivedi, as the railway minister, had planned to set up an engine manufacturing and coach building hub in Bengal, before his tenure was cut short and he was asked to resign by TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee in March 2012.

    “Bengal which was an industrialised state long before many others, slipped as successive governments failed to deliver it from a cycle of violence, corruption and ‘tolabaji (extortion),” said Trivedi who started his political career with the Congress, became a Rajya Sabha MP of the Janata Dal in 1990, before switching over to the TMC in 1998.

    The BJP’s manifesto called ‘Sankalp Patra’, too, had lamented that Bengal’s share in India’s industrial production had fallen from 30 per cent to 3.5 per cent.

    “This has happened despite the best brains and resources because of this endless cycle (of violence and corruption). When Mamata Banerjee came to power, replacing the Left, we spoke of ‘Bodol’ (change). The only change was in the party which ruled Bengal, not in the governance style.

    “She simply copied the CPIM)’s model of interfering at every stage of our social, political, and economic life down to the village level. The few jobs that were there were bought and sold. Government benefits depended on political patronage,” Trivedi, an alumnus of Kolkata’s St Xavier’s College and Texas University, said. He said dance bars and liquor vends increased in numbers but not industry.

    The state now earns a significant slice of its revenues from liquor sales and lottery business, he claimed. As jobs got scarce, the coal mafia became a major employer, employing thousands in unsafe and exploitative environment in illegal coal mines, something which needs to be stopped and legal mining operations expanded, he noted.

    “We feel there is a need to bring about a paradigm shift and that can only happen once this cycle is broken,” said Trivedi.

  • Bengal polls 2021: The strategist and the Muslim, SC/ST votebank

    Express News Service
    WEST BENGAL: “This election is bipolar. I don’t see anything else at the micro or macro level.”

    That’s one of Mamata Banerjee’s key strategists airing his views, post two volatile phases of polling, with six more to go, a process that cumulatively promises to run a bleeding-edge scythe through West Bengal’s political history.

    Bengal, particularly Kolkata, is of course teeming with election strategists, free-floating analysts and sundry do-gooders. That’s natural for a state with that kind of heightened political consciousness. But our man stands out for various reasons. For one, no one can be more free-floating than him in an election where the ‘outsider/insider’ binary has been quite pronounced, he’s an outsider on the inside, so to speak, having travelled across a few green fields, been on all sides, peddling his professional wares like a migrant labourer of strategic thought. And he has all the swagger of a new-age visionary.

    It’s quite a crowded field, though. Some have come to save Bengal from cultural corruption, others have come to rescue it from petty corruption—cut money, tolabaaji (extortion), political rent-seeking of many shades, all that. It has some benefits. The hotel industry and the fab cafes haven’t seen such brisk business in the last 10 years of Didi’s rule. None of them will say koro na (don’t do it) to this moveable feast, corona or no corona.

    Among the migratory flocks, some of the busiest are those who make managing elections their raison d’etre. Like our man. Quite apolitical, they look at elections clinically, through the prism of personality cults, creation of catchphrases and hashtags—all with bands of young, outsourced volunteers. “This election is about Mamata Banerjee,” claims one such strategist, “nothing else matters.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who’s thundering forth from more rally pulpits here in Bengal than he may have spoken on some other delicate occasions, pretty much confirms that in his own way. He doesn’t utter a line without mockingly invoking her, intoning the words “Arrey Didi….”

    The strategist obviously thinks he knows the best. But Mamata, being the Didi that she is, can’t be scripted to fit into any box—not even the one that’s labelled Banglar meye (daughter of Bengal). She’s too canny for that. In Cooch Behar, for instance, Mamata reminds voters: “This election is not about me. It is about saving Bengal.” Cooch Behar (nine seats) and Alipurduar (five seats), up north, nestled along the restive Chicken’s Neck, are going to polls on April 6. 

    Subaltern & Muslim votes count in poll fight for Mamata

    This border region, with Assam, Bhutan and the hills adding variety to the proximity of Bangladesh, has a slightly distinct air and culture, separate from the rest of Bengal. They represent a spot of bother for her, but she’ll certainly not let it go without a fight, whatever may the strategist’s view be. Quite surprisingly, here she focuses more on the bit players than on her main rival, the BJP. “Don’t fall for that man from Hyderabad” or “the other one from Furfura Sharif,” she says again and again.

    “Don’t divide your vote.” Lest her target audience misses the point, she clarifies: “My friends from the minority and SC/ST communities, don’t divide your votes.” That’s a nudge to them to stay away from Asaduddin Owaisi and Abbas Siddiqui, the man who floated a party (ISF) just last month and is in an alliance with the Congress-Left. The ISF, incidentally, has fielded more Dalit than Muslim candidates. Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e- Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (colloquially shortened to everywhere here as MIM) is testing the waters in a few, limited seats here—and that may just suffice to cut a few crucial TMC votes in Cooch Behar and adjoining Uttar Dinajpur. Siddiqui (or Abbas Baba, as he’s popularly known) is mostly present in the southern parts, where he has some strength.

    Not so much up there in the north. Not even in the central districts, which have a high Muslim concentration, and are going to polls in the last three phases. That’s left to its partners to harvest their old fiefs. The TMC does need to maximise its gains here, while cutting its losses elsewhere. The old status quo where central Bengal was seen as a traditional secular Congress stronghold, with a smattering of Left presence, has been broken with communal polarisation. Which is at an all-time high now. Hence, the scramble for 30-40% minority votes in about 70 constituencies between the Sanjukta Morcha (of the Congress- Left-ISF) and the TMC each rivalling the other to corner anti-BJP votes.

    Meanwhile, the BJP, which had swept the 2019 Lok Sabha seats in the north, particularly in Cooch Behar, is freely preying everywhere on anti-incumbency votes. And of course, that of neo-converts to Hindu identity politics—a new, burgeoning phenomenon in Bengal. Many districts go to polls only later this month, but work is in full swing. So are WhatsApp videos. The latest is from Siuri, Birbhum, where a Muslim congregation is seen supposedly pledging its votes to saffron! The TMC strategist, for his part, is least bothered. “Let them (as in, BJP) take all the 27 seats in the north. How does it matter? Contrary to propaganda, we’ve done well in the first two phases.

    And we’re winning Nandigram.” No escape from Nandigram! The BJP is all too happy to keep the narrative pinned to what they like to call “Didi’s Waterloo”. And thus conjuring up an image of Mamata leading a retreating army, and letting that flow into public consciousness. The strategist asserts all the Nandigram polling brouhaha and the battle of perspectives thereafter, around who won, will have “no impact” on the next rounds of polling.

    “It’s done and dusted.” Well…speculation is meanwhile rife that Didi may be looking for a second seat, perhaps in Birbhum. How come? It was sparked off by none other than the Prime Minister. TMC strategists and Didi’s war-room aides vehement ly deny any such possibility. If Didi has the final say on this or anything else, the strategist is poised as a prime influencer of sorts. The influence seems gradually waning, though. As of now, the strategist is discouraging Urban Development Minister Firhad (Bobby) Hakim and MP Nusrat Jahan, both articulate TMC leaders, from campaigning in non-minority-dominated areas. Demands from candidates notwithstanding.

    The polarisation is that complete. Didi herself, however, brooks no such rules. Reciting Chandipath on stage and mentioning her gotra (duly mocked by the ‘Hyderabadi’) is no longer her focus as she vociferously courts the minority and SC/ST voters. Didi knows if the TMC cannot maximise its seats in Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Birbhum and Burdwan, the game would close in on her. The Morcha may not be making headlines, and may be laughed off as ‘old nostalgia’ with no electoral impact on the ground by the strategist, but Didi clearly thinks otherwise.

    When every vote counts, she cannot allow even a semblance of Muslim-Dalit alliance a partly novel idea in these parts, emanating from Abbas Baba, his Morcha, or Oswaisi’s acid tongue—break her wider social alliance. Particularly, when in Nadia, Hooghly, Howrah, North and South 24 Parganas, the BJP is mining local anger with a potent mix of religiosity, to its advantage. Tactically, Didi is now playing opposition politics to stop subaltern votes from deserting her. Didi can really get as bipolar as Bengal when she wants!

  • West Bengal elections: BJP accuses TMC of obstructing election meeting a day before phase III voting

    By ANI
    KAMARHATI: A day before phase III voting in West Bengal, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) levelled charges against Trinamool Congress (TMC) for obstructing an election meeting in Kamarhati Assembly constituency of North 24 Parganas district on Monday.

    According to BJP, TMC-backed miscreants disrupted the meeting on Sunday night. It is also alleged that TMC-backed miscreants burned down the hoardings and BJP flags.

    However, Belgharia Police rushed to the spot after receiving a complaint to control the situation and evacuated people of both parties.

    The TMC and BJP are at loggerheads in the poll-bound West Bengal. Polling for the first two phases of the West Bengal elections were held on March 27 and April 1 respectively. The next phase of polling will take place on April 6. 

  • Farmers try to gherao union minister Som Parkash in Hoshiarpur, cops foil their attempt

    By PTI
    HOSHIARPUR: Protesting farmers Sunday tried to gherao Union minister Som Parkash at the BJP office in Shastri Nagar here where he was present with senior leader Tikshan Sud and other party workers for a meeting, but the police thwarted their attempt.

    The Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry had gone to the local BJP office to attend a party meeting.

    When the farmers protesting against the three central agriculture-related laws came to know that the union minister was present at the BJP officer, they headed there to gherao him, but were stopped at three points by the police.

    Some of the farmers tried to break the barricades at the Red Road, but the police personnel deployed there foiled their attempt, police said.

    Farmers then raised slogans against the Central government and the minister, who is also the MP from Hoshiarpur.

    Parkash remained in the party office for about two hours and then left under heavy police protection.

    Farmers in Punjab and Haryana have been protesting against the BJP leaders to register their disapproval of the three new farm laws, which the Centre says will be beneficial for them.

  • Trinamool fighting hard to retain hold over Abhishek Banerjee’s backyard Diamond Harbour

    By PTI
    DIAMOND HARBOUR: The Trinamool Congress is fighting hard to retain the seven assembly segments in Diamond Harbour constituency, represented by TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee in the Lok Sabha.

    Apart from a surge in BJP’s support base, allegations of corruption in Amphan relief seemed to be a cause of concern for the TMC, despite the fact that Banerjee, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew had won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by more than 3.2 lakh votes.

    The Left front led-Sanjukta Morcha’s emergence as a third force has also queered the pitch as young CPM and ISF workers have been fanning out seeking support for their candidates.

    Out of the seven assembly segments in Diamond Harbour constituency, Banerjee had a huge lead in Muslim-dominated Metiaburuz and Budge Budge assembly segments, while he was ahead by a handsome margin in Maheshtala, Bishnupur, Satgachia, Falta and Diamond Harbour, all of which also have a sizeable minority population.

    While the CPI(M) is contesting Diamond Harbour, Satgachia, Bishnupur and Maheshtala, the Congress is fighting from Budge Budge and Falta, while the ISF has put up its candidate in Metiabruz, which is situated in the south-western outskirts of Kolkata.

    Allegations of irregularities in distribution of relief to those affected by the Amphan cyclone, in May last year have rocked the state government with the Calcutta High Court ordering an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

    The BJP top leadership have raked up the allegations in almost every election meeting, while the chief minister Banerjee has asserted that all affected have been given relief with the exception of a few possible glitches.

    There are 17,18,454 voters in the seven segments, with 8,32,059 being female and 8,86,339 male, while there are 56 from the third gender.

    With the Election Commission holding elections in the 31 assembly segments in South 24 Parganas district in an unprecedented three phases, four seats in Diamond Harbour – Falta, Satgachia, Bishnupur and Diamond Harbour will go for polls on April 6 while the voters in Maheshtala, Budge Budge and Metiaburuz will exercise their franchise on April 10.

    “We have got everything, our MLA Dilip Mondal has done a lot of work and we have electricity and good roads, there is peace in the area,” Basudeb Mondal, a local TMC leader at Companypukur village in Bishnupur assembly segment claimed.

    While the infrastructure does indeed look good with smooth roads replacing the older bumpy, pot-holed roads in the area, an undercurrent of discontent is discernible among a section of voters, who complain of partisan relief distribution and lack of jobs even as they also speak of infrastructural development.

    However, many others said that relief and dole had flowed without hitches.

    Habibullah Sheikh, a vegetable seller, said his family received funds from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s ‘Rupashri’ scheme for his sister’s marriage.

    TMC flags flutter in most places, but nearby flags with BJP’s lotus symbol, vie to catch the passerby’s eye.

    The CPM’s hammer and sickle however are few and far between.

    Said 25-year-old Palash Mondal, 25, an unemployed youth, “the tradition of having one party rule Bengal for decades should not continue as that breeds corruption and hampers development.”

    “Those who want jobs want a change,” added Mondal, a graduate.

    Discontent against local party leaders seems to have forced TMC to replace four-time MLA Sonali Guha as its candidate in Satgachia, prompting her to join the BJP.

    While this has led to confusion among voters it has also meant the party is a divided house.

    Auto-rickshaw driver Tulsi Pal claimed “many people could not vote in the panchayat elections, hope this time it will be different.”

    Falta, which has a sizable number of factories in the Special Economic Zone there, appeared peaceful with not much political sloganeering on.

    TMC worker Ranjit Das claimed the ruling party is sure of a win there.

    The TMC has fielded rookie Shankar Kumar Naskar from Falta following the death of three-time party MLA Tamonash Ghosh, who did not hide his uncomfortable relationship with the local MP, during the pandemic.

    At Chandnagar village, the air is full of optimism among TMC workers as many feel candidate Pannalal Halder will win handsomely from Diamond Harbour seat, while admitting that the BJP has emerged as the main opponent this time around.

    TMC’s sitting MLA Dipak Halder, who left the party to join the BJP and was nominated by it as its candidate from the seat, was at the receiving end of an attack allegedly by his former colleagues while campaigning at Haridevpur village on Friday.

    The ruling party has denied any role in the assault.

    Busy putting up posters of Mamata Banerjee on roadside walls with “Bangla nijer meyeke chai (Bengal wants its own daughter) written on the posters, Mir Alam Laskar of the TMC charged BJP and its leadership with dividing the riverine community on religious lines.

    “It is because of the saffron party that such things are happening.”