Old Laloo Mian breaks down like a child — as soon as he gets a sympathetic pat on his shoulder —not only because he finds it difficult to make the both ends meet but because he does not know where to go after BJP comes to power because “they will push us to Bangladesh.”
His wrinkled face and bare rickety torso evokes concern.
Date line: Pakuria, a tiny village in Domjur constituency, bordering Howrah and East Midnapore district from where BJP’s turncoat number two Rajib Banerjee a former Minister in Mamata Banerjee cabinet is contesting on a saffron ticket.
“Babu I swear by my Allah! We have been residents here for more than a hundred years … not a relative of us have any acquaintance in that country… My food will be a haram if I tell a lie,” he cries out. When told that he has nothing to fear till he has the documents with him he looks blankly. Babu we don’t have job cards in place then how can we keep the other documents properly in this tiny shanty.”
When asked whether he had received adequate supplies during Amphan he says “see here the entire roof and everything were blown away but not a farthing came from the panchayat (read Government).”
Even then he would not vote for the BJP for obvious reasons. But “babu I would preferred the Laal Party (Left) but they are supporting Bhaijaan (ISF) … winning or losing I will support that party.” He is as uncomplicated and candid as an humble villager should be.”
Cut to Nana Panchayat where a former CPI(M) man says he would support Rajib Banerjee because “he has done considerable work for this area.
He has brought drinking water pipeline to Pakuria which is likely to come here too, he has worked on sewerage system so that “we have less mosquito bites today … I don’t mind his joining the BJP. I am still a Left supporter but I will back him.”
Bikash Dhara a bargadar (share-cropper) remembers how “Jyoti Basu did a great job by giving us livelihood, he gave us land … in the Left rule things were peaceful … there was no Hindu-Muslim … but today Mamata didi and Modi have divided us. We are scared to go to the Muslim locality not because they are hostile because we get uncanny feeling … this is all mental we know but that is the situation now… I cannot tell my son not to work for the either party because he has been purchased by one of them.”
Who has purchased whom he would not say. “There is definitely a refrain that Buddha Babu is not there … there is definitely a refrain that why we brought him down but still we have no choice and we will have to chose a lesser evil between this too,” says Shankar Bauri of Pakuria. He means TMC and BJP. He however says that Banerjee as a minister did a great job making concrete roads “as far as up to your door steps.”
But local TMC leader Subhas says “it is not Rajib Banerjee but it is the work of Mamata Banerjee. Had the Chief Minister not helped him would he have been able to do this work? So vote will come in the name of Mamata Didi.”
However a bunch of daily wagers at a by-lane at Nanna murmurs: “only the EVM will talk.” When asked why one of them asks about the chances of BJP coming to power. When told that it has good chances of winning he says “we have job cards for 100-days work but we get 2-3 days only. The entire lock down we got no work… only those who have either more number of voters in their houses or who paid cash got work… they only gave us some rice and we had to collect plants from the bushes to cook with rice and eat.”
His wife Soma (name changed) says “my husband and a few people went jointly to ask for jobs and see what they did to them (she pulls up her husband’s banyan … see these scars for yourself … they beat them up mercilessly … only when we caught their feet that they were relieved or else they would be murdered that day and no one would get a trace of their corpse.”
And what was Rajib Banerjee as a Minister doing then? “They would not let us go to him. If they got a wind of we going to him then they would bump us off.”
She says how most of the 200 booths in the last Assembly elections were captured by TMC adding quickly however that “we were fortunate that Rajib Babu is not like his followers… he has some mercy.”
Whom would they bump off this time round? They look bewildered and tentative. “Sir we don’t have a choice … We would have preferred the Laal Party but they are too week … so we will have to choose between these two … Let us see,” says Anima an undecided voter. Wonder whether the “undecided” clan poses the biggest threat to the ruler and challenger this time round from Domjur.