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All's
right for Left in Keshpur, even the rival candidate thinks so
Santanu
Banerjee
Keshpur
(Midnapore), May 4: Why
did you go to Jaina Khatoon’s house? Is it because she is a
Trinamool Congress worker?’’ A blue-veined, red-faced
lean man accompanied by ten other cronies surrounded the vehicle
of this reporter. The group got even more irate when told that the
next stop was the local CPI(M)’s leader’s party office.
‘‘But you didn’t come to us. When you visit Suroi,
come to us first and we’ll tell you where to go.’’
There’s ample disquiet on the Keshpur front. This hotspot of
one-upmanship in Midnapore district in West Bengal has seen some
of the bloodiest battles between the CPI(M) and Trinamool Congress.
Between January and October last year alone, around 43 people died,
huts were burnt and villagers who switched their loyalties to the
new alternative to the Left were hounded out.
And if Trinamool workers are to be believed, the Left doesn’t
need to go through the rigours of an Assembly election here. The
constituency, with 199 booths and 1.63 lakh voters, will go to the
polls on May 10, and already, propaganda and its counter are flying
between the two rivals.
Rajani Kanta Dolui, the Trinamool Congress candidate in Keshpur,
is in a straight fight with his CPI(M) rival Nandarani Dal, but
he wants out, with party supremo Mamata Banerjee’s permission.
‘‘BJP candidate D.Kalsar quit the race under pressure
from his family members, and I’m seriously thinking of withdrawing
too,’’ said Dolui.
He points to a pile of leaflets and flags at his office which, he
claims, couldn’t be distributed anywhere. ‘‘CPI(M)
workers came and tore the leaflets and party flags. And I have no
faith in the police’’ he said. Sitting MLA Nandarani Dal
won the 1996 election, defeating Congress’ Sanyasi Dolui by
over 40,000 votes.
‘‘We
can give Dolui protection, but we can’t take the responsibility
of writing on walls or distributing party leaflets for him,’’
said a senior district administration official. The situation ‘‘is
really very bad’’, he added ominously. The administration
has deployed nearly 16 companies of Central security forces in the
district.
The CPI(M),
of course, has its own side to the story: ‘‘Early this
week, police arrested over 50 Trinamool people with arms. You know
what they would have done to us if they were not arrested,’’
said one of the members of the group that gheraoed this reporter.
Dolui, who fought elections on Congress tickets from Keshpur in
the late sixties and early seventies, denies it. ‘‘They
were campaigning when they were picked up. It’s a frame-up,’’
he said.
Trinamool Congress
supporters who were forced to leave their homes in the violence
that followed the Panskura bye-election last year haven’t yet
returned. ‘‘And you ask if polling would be free and fair?
if I were allowed to vote, it would be for TMC,’’ says
Jaina Khatoon of Suroi, who lost her son Jamshed Ali.
Keshpur has emerged as a bugbear for the CPI(M) after Trinamool
Congress’ Lok Sabha candidate Bikram Sarkar won the Panskura
bye-election in June last year, defeating Gurudas Dasgupta. The
bye-election took place following the death of CPI leader Gita Mukherjee.
In the run-up to and the aftermath of the election, 26 TMC-BJP and
17 CPI(M) workers died between January and October 2000.
However, the late leader’s pickings in the 1999 Lok Sabha election
indicated which way the wind was blowing for the Left here: Mukherjee’s
tally fell to 62,405 while the Trinamool Congress cornered 68,405
votes. For the CPI(M), though, Mamata’s Panskura line ‘‘means
nothing but booth jamming and rigging’’. May 10 is still
some days away, and the war of words and votes continues..
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