Ponzi fund scams, alleged largescale bungling in last year’s Teachers’ Eligibility Test (TET), violence against women and albeit the undercurrent support for Greater Coochbehar People’s Association spearheading the campaign for a separate Coochbehar State seem to be the vital political issues these elections for North Bengal’s Coochbehar seat bordering Assam.
The second biggest left Front constituent Forward Bloc has never lost the seat since the Marxist Government came to power in 1977. However with Mamata Banerjee at the helm post-Parivartan in 2011, the going has become tougher for the Bloc, locals say.
The emphatic win of the Trinamool Congress in the 2011 Assembly elections seem to have tilted the balance in favour of the ruling outfit notwithstanding the plethora of scams that have taken place in the past couple of years.
The party has since then made inroads into segments like Toofanganj, Mekhliganj, Natabari, Sitai, Sitalkuchi. Hence, its candidate for the lok Sabha elections Arghya Roy Pradhan claims, “We will sweep Coochbehar in all Assembly segments. There will be literally no trace of the left Front.”
Curiously, he makes no reference of the BJP and the Congress insisting “the people are very conscious and they have read through the game plan of the left, Congress and the BJP to split the anti-left votes. Other than the left Front, all parties would forfeit their deposits.”
Notwithstanding his loud claims, says Prasanta Najjinari a local trader and a rebel Trinamool activist from Khagrabari, “out of 80,000 candidates who took the TET examination, only about 550 got jobs. This will surely reflect in the polls.” A majority of those who got selected are from the ruling party. The rest had to pay a handsome “donation” of Rs 5-8 lakh, he maintains referring to the massive scam where more than 20 lakh applicants appeared throughout the State but only about 17,000 got chance.
In 2009, Bloc’s Nripendranath Roy polled 44.66 per cent votes while the Trinamool got about 41 per cent. The BJP finished third with about 6 per cent votes.
Kripa Shankar Das, a schoolteacher, informs how the Chief Minister had been repeatedly promising lofty projects “but most of them have not started as yet.” His voice finds an echo in the statement of Amit Dutta, district secretary of DYFI, the youth wing of the CPI(M). “The TET scam will definitely reflect in the ballot box,” he emphasises.
However, Tarun Burman, a restaurant owner at Sitai Assembly area, refutes the claims of the Opposition saying the “biggest thing the Trinamool Congress has done in Bengal is that it has rid the State of the Red menace, secondly Mamata Banerjee has focussed on infrastructure development as a result of which the road network in the interior area has developed.”
He was supported by Duryodhan Roy of Dinhata. He feels, “We have a better road and health setup today. There are fare-price shops and we also have more number of educational institutions coming up here. Before Mamata Banerjee no leader from Kolkata had time to visit these wretched areas.”
No wonder the princely town is replete with graffiti and festoons of the ruling outfit compared to the negligible wall-writing of the Opposition parties.
However, Partho Ishore of the Congress says, “Rampant threat and violence by the Trinamool workers is forcing us to go for low-key campaign.”
Bloc’s Gola Dey says, “We are concentrating on house-to-house campaign rather than large meetings as the people are too afraid.”
Julian Singh (not his real name), a local from BS Road who had joined the much-touted civic police launched by the Government “only to be kicked out one day” informs about 50,000 people joined the civic police but most of them are not getting payments and their future is unsure.”
locals also talk about how ponzi fund deals have eaten into the vitals of the local economy. A Congress leader refers to the High Court order empowering Enforcement Directorate to probe the chit fund scam involving Angel Agritech which has on its boards a State Minister three or four MPs and a cricketer. “Do you think these will not be taken into account by the people of Coochbehar,” he wonders.
Chit fund and failed promises are not the only issues here. With Greater Coochbehar People’s Association joining the electoral fray, the Trinamool Congress has lost an ally making the going tougher for the party, locals say.
“Our leader Bangshibadan Burman is contesting the polls and we are expecting a good contest here,” says a GCPA supporter.
“If the Government can give a separate Telangana, why cannot we get a separate State,” AK Burman, a GCPA leader asks.