What a pity for the once all-powerful Marxists!, says Sheikh Haru. He is a staunch Trinamool Congress man at Memari, one of the seven Assembly segments in Burdwan East constituency.
His immediate point of reference is the near invisibility of any graffiti or festoon of the CPI(M) in the area. “It is not that we have banished them. They are simply not there. They cannot even open their party offices as people do not like them,” the once agrarian labourer whose fortunes have gone northwards since the Trinamool won in 2011, says dismissing all complaints of violence and threat levelled by the left Front across Burdwan — once an impregnable left fortress.
“There were days when we had to take clearance from the CPI(M) local committee to even defecate. But we at least allow them that. There is full democracy here now. But it comes at a price. Everything Red is banned here,” confirms Afzal Sheikh from Jamalpur another Assembly constituency adding the irony of the CPI(M) is that all the Harmads (mercenaries) they once had in their payroll had now turned coats.
On whether he is aware of Saradha scam or large-scale bungling in Teachers’ Eligibility Test exams he justifies it, “CPI(M) sucked the honey when they were in power now it is our turn; what is wrong in it!”
The once strongest Red bastion of CPI(M) Burdwan is now dwindling wasteland for the Marxists. CPI(M) district secretary Amal Haldar concedes this circuitously saying “Our men cannot even open their party offices. Thousands of our workers have either fled homes or jailed or browbeaten to join the Trinamool Congress because if they do not do so then they would not be allowed to till their lands or their women would be lifted and houses set on fire.”
On whether he sees history repeating itself in Burdwan he says “we may have erred in some areas for which the people have penalised us. But now what is happening is sheer lumpen hoodlumism,” he reminds how Senoir left leaders like Kamal Gayen and Falguni Mukherjee were murdered in broad daylight and how former MlA Pradip Tah was bludgeoned to death in full public glare in 2012.
He also reminds the left Front’s land reforms more commonly known as ‘Operation Burga’ and panchayati raj system “which kept us in power for so many years.” It was not possible to hold on to power through violence for 34 years by doing nothing he insists adding “lal Jhanda continues to be a friend of the poor but sooner or later the people will understand it.”
He also says “in case of a fair poll the left would beat Trinamool. The panchayat poll results show how despite large-scale violence and rigging when we could not give candidates in 7,000 seats the total difference of polled votes was only 20 lakh. Trinamool got 1.53 crore while we got 1.33 crore.”
Though the seat currently is with the CPI(M) which got 5.3 lakh votes as against Congress-Trinamool combines 4.72 lakh votes in 2009 general elections, the 2011 Assembly polls saw five segments going to the Trinamool and one each to the left and the Congress. The BJP polled 71,000 votes.