
KOLKATA: Irrespective of who wins the Murshidabad and Jangipur Lok Sabha (LS)constituencies, voters on either side of river Bhagirathi have just one wish — to be able to exercise their franchise, that they were deprived of in last year’s rural polls when 64% of gram panchayat seats went to the ruling Trinamool, completely uncontested.
While the state witnessed Trinamool’s unchallenged victory in 34% seats in the rural polls, the figure is almost double for Murshidabad district and the highest in the state. After bagging a sweeping victory in the rural polls, the Trinamool now aims for the Murshidabad LS seat, from where the party has never been successful. Non-stop poaching of leaders over the past two years by the ruling party has bled the Congress badly — with 5 of its 22 sitting MLAs defecting. The Trinamool also managed to poach 2 Communist Party of India (Marxist) MLAs and 6 heads of municipal bodies.
Adhir Chowdhury, Congress MP from Behrampore, said, “An alliance with the Left Front was necessary to recapture political space.” With massive defections, the Trinamool feels it has finally arrived vis-a-vis the Congress, which is using the Mamata Banerjee-led party’s alleged atrocities during last year’s rural polls as the only tool to combat it. While Mamata Banerjee is showcasing a slew of her development projects in the state, Congress is highlighting people’s anger and their unhappiness over having their fundamental right to vote snatched.
Not only that, those who were eventually able to vote in the panchayat polls found themselves victims of “false voting’’ too. Sheikh Siraz was one such voter. He turned up at a polling booth in Nabagra and was told by the presiding officer that he had already cast his vote. He showed his clean index finger, but it did not work. Mamata is also confronted with allegations against her foot soldiers of corruption, forcing farmers to make distress sales and siphoning off funds meant for silk weavers’.
To stop exploitation by middlemen, allegedly backed by Trinamool supporters, the Bengal government introduced a ‘direct purchase’ policy but it failed to sort out the issue.After receiving a registration certificate, farmers wait up to three months to sell rice at the fixed price — `1570 per quintal. A farmer is entitled to sell a maximum of 15 quintals of rice against each registration card which is issued against documents like the EPIC card and bank account details.
‘‘We wait for immediate payments for our products to repay local money lenders. Taking advantage, middlemen keep approaching us and we are forced to sell them rice at `1,200 per quintal,’’ said Monjarul Haque of Sagardighi in Jangipur.A journey along the state highways cutting across empty fields revealed startling joblessness in the district. Nearly 10 lakh of electors left the district in search of jobs in other states, including Gujarat, presently ruled by Mamata’s prime political rival, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Shahbazpur, a non-descript village with more than 95% minority population in Murshidabad, has men from every household in Gujarat working as construction workers.
Meer Ali, who had a dilapidated hut 10 years ago, said, “My three sons have been in Gujarat for the past eight years. One of them has settled there. Agriculture was the only source of income. But distress sales forced me to send them out of the state.’’ He is now constructing a three-storey house with money sent by his sons.
In the Murshidabad Lok Sabha seat, the Left Front and the Congress suffered a dent in vote banks in 2014 as their vote share dropped by 10.67% and 15.49% respectively, while the Trinamool’s went up by more than 22%.
Results of 2014 elections in Jangipur LS seat were also too close for the son of former President Pranab Mukherjee, who is contesting for his third term. Abhijit’s vote share dropped by 20.44% while his rival Left Front candidate failed to retain 7.45% of the electors. The Trinamool made inroads with an increased 18.54% vote share.