The cool shadow of this banyan tree at Tunidighi More in Raiganj has a distinct history for the past many decades. leaders past and present contesting elections would invariably stop over here to escape the wrath of a glowing sun and breathe in a few lungful of cool air. The cool shade also has another small distinction.
It is the hotbed of many a gossip: like the one on how Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee finally drove a wedge in the Dasmunshi household.
True, the common gossip these days in the Raiganj lok Sabha seat centres around the famous Devar-Bhabhi war. Boudi as the sitting Congress MP and Union Minister Deepa Dasmunshi — the wife of ailing Congress leader PR Dasmunshi — is fondly referred to, is facing a challenger not from an outsider but from her own brother-in-law Pabitra Ranjan Dasmunshi.
Nicknamed Satyada, he has been hand-picked by the Chief Minister to teach Deepa a lesson. The junior Dasmunshi had recently joined the Trinamool at the behest of Banerjee, termed his sister-in-law a usurper and declared himself as the rightful claimant of his brother’s fief.
“Though he will not win, he will surely eat away a sizeable number of votes,” says Anadi Saha a trader adding, “the people of Raiganj voted for Boudi on sympathy grounds but she has failed to bring in development here.” He is supported by Anirban a rive mill owner “No industry has come up here. Infrastructure is so poor that you have to rush either to Siliguri or Kolkata for whatever a better living.”
In 2009, Dasmunshi polled a little more than 4.5 lakh votes while CPI(M)’s Bireshwar lahiri got about 4.46 lakh votes. While in 2009 general polls, the Congress-Trinamool combine won from all the Assembly segments; in 2011 State polls, the left bagged three while the Cong-Trinamool got four seats.
“I think multi-cornered fight will not make much problem as new voters would make the difference,” Deepa Dasmunshi says conceding that “the fight this time is more difficult than the one in 2009. This is because we are fighting a multi-corned contest.”
On who will benefit the most she says, “our work is to reach out to the people who are the best judges.”
Apart from her devarji, BJP’s Nimu Bhjowmick is also giving Deepa a hard time so to say. Bangla actor and ‘son of the soil’ Bhowmick a suave senior citizen has descended from Kolkata to claim a stake in the politics of his janmabhumi.
“I am quite familiar with the problems of the place as I am originally from Raiganj,” Bhowmick says adding, he has a whole lot of plans in his mind which he will reveal after the elections. Bhowmick is confident of a win on account of polarisation of votes thanks to Mamata Banerjee’s unbridled policy of appeasement towards minorities.
That the BJP is going to put up a good fight here can be proved from the fact that the party took out a huge 15-thousand strong procession at Islampur Assembly segment a few days ago. “You can easily gauge the mood of the people here,” said Ranjan Pakrashi from Islampur adding, “Mamata has done a big favour to the BJP by her blatant minoritism.”
Raiganj is the headquarters of North Dinajpur district one of the most backward regions with about 47 per cent minority votes.
Dasmunshi’s problem is advantage for left Front candidate MD Salim, a former MP and a State Minister. Though he has an outsider tag coming all the way from Kolkata, he counters the criticism saying “though I am from Kolkata I am familiar with the district’s problems as I am the party’s in-charge of Raiganj.”
On whether he would gain from the massive division of rightist votes or would he get the majority of Muslim votes Salim says, “the left vote does not rely on communal factor. We fight ideologically and expect to get votes on that count.”
Though better placed than others Salim’s problem is the Samajwadi Party that has fielded a candidate from this district. The party was once a left Front constituent. But its leader from the State Kiranmoy Nanda who was also a Minister for 20 years has fielded a candidate from Raiganj apparently to settle scores with the CPI(M), which he holds responsible for his defeat by about 1,500 votes in 2011 State elections. “It seems that they will poll well over 40-45 thousand votes making it difficult for the left,” says Amiya Tudu a local.