| Fear
stalks Keshpur as Trinamool man ‘retires’ from today’s poll
Sabyasachi
Bandopadhyay
Midnapore,
May 9:
Talk to anybody in Keshpur — one of the 37 Assembly constituencies
of Midnapore district, the constituency that has become the focal
point at the Assembly elections of West Bengal 2001 — and they
will tell you that what is going to happen tomorrow will be a farce
of an election, a mockery of democracy.
Talk to Trinamool Congress supporters — that are only about
100 of them — at Kejurbani village who were evicted from their
homes three years ago by CPI(M) goons and who returned to their
village just yesterday on assurances from the administration. ‘‘There
is no question of going to the polling booth,’’ says Mir
Abdul Kaleque, their leader, pointing at Kejurbani Primary School,
a polling booth just a stone’s throw from his house.
‘‘Had there been a permanent police camp here, we may
have gone, but the camps have been withdrawn and we cannot take
the risk of casting our votes because if we do, we can not live
here,’’ Khaleque told The Indian Express.
The fear is real, all-pervading. Enough for the Trinamool Congress
candidate from Keshpur, Rajani Dolui, to write to the Election Commission
today, stating that he had ‘‘retired’’ from
the fray for the second time in three days and requesting that the
elections there be postponed.
‘‘Even if Mamata Banerjee tells me again, I will not change
my decision because I don’t want bloodshed there,’’
Dolui said after handing over a copy of the letter he sent to CEC
M.S. Gill. ‘‘I don’t want Trinamool supporters to
get killed after the elections,’’ said Dolui, who has
won this seat four times. And Dolui has reason to be scared. Yesterday,
after assurances from the administration and also his party chief
that she would talk to the DM and SP to ensure his full protection,
Dolui went to Keshpur. ‘‘I was accompanying a group of
168 people, and escorted by one sub-inspector and two armed constables,’’
Dolui said.
‘‘When we were putting up posters and banners at Majuria,
CPI(M) activists surrounded us with guns and lathis and threw bricks
at the police vehicle, breaking the rear glass panes of the vehicle.
The police told the us to give in and fled the place. Finally, I
had to beat a retreat,’’ he said.
Of the 450 people who went with Dolui, only about 156 have returned.
One of them, Abdul Hai Mallick of Uchhara village, cannot go back
because of lack of security. Sitting at the party office in Keshpur
market, Mullick narrated their story of sorrow, perspiring heavily
as power lines had been cut off, allegedly by CPI(M) goons. ‘‘There
is no food and water,’’ Mullick said. ‘‘The
police gave us some food in the morning and a pitcher of water but
that is finished now,’’ said another supporter, Lakshmi
Dey. ‘‘And there is no question of going to vote,’’
he added. It seems to have become the refrain in these parts.
The CPI(M) is certain of their victory from this constituency which
has become a prestige issue for both the CPI(M) and the Trinamool
Congress. ‘‘We won the last elections by a margin of 48,000
votes. We are 200 per cent sure of our victory at Keshpur,’’
declared Entaz Ali, member of the CPI (M) Zonal Committee. He should
know. Ali is credited as the architect of the CPI(M)’s return
in the Keshpore-Garbeta area after it lost the Panskura parliamentary
by-election to the Trinamool Congress last year.
‘‘I am not putting polling agents at any of the 199 booths
nor shall I set up booth camps anywhere,’’ Dolui says.
‘‘This is all meaningless,’’ M.V. Rao, District
Magistrate and Returning Officer of Midnapore said: ‘‘He
has done this before and officially, he is in the fray. We have
made all arrangements for free and fair election and adequate security
personnel have been deployed.’’
But that claim too appears meaningless as this reporter’s car
was stopped outside Kejurbani village and we had to face a barrage
of questions about wher we had gone and who we had spoken to.
People say that Mamata will be in town by midnight, to supervise
elections in the morning and leave Midnapore at noon to reach Kolkata
just in time to cast her vote. This is not election, this is war.
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