Kolkata, Apr 27 (PTI) Industrial distress and precarious law and order situation in the jute hub of North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal dominate the poll agenda in the cosmopolitan Noapara, Bhatpara and Barrackpore assembly constituencies, where the feud between BJP leader Arjun Singh and his associate-turned-rival TMC MP Partha Bhowmick writs large.
Singh, a former BJP MP of Barrackpore Lok Sabha seat, is contesting from Noapara, promising to resolve the jute crisis affecting the mills in the region. He is taking on TMC’s Trinankur Bhattacharjee, who replaces veteran party leader and sitting MLA Manju Basu in Noapara.
While the TMC won Barrackpore and Noapara in the previous polls, the BJP won Bhatpara in the 2019 bypoll and the 2021 elections. The BJP has renominated Arjun’s son, Pawan Singh, from Bhatpara.
A centre of Sanskrit learning in medieval and pre-modern Bengal, Bhatpara has now become infamous for turf wars and deadly clashes that keep the residents on tenterhooks.
Bhowmick and Arjun Singh point accusatory fingers at each other over the never-ending violence in the region, which was once a CPI(M) bastion.
It was the precarious law and order situation that led to the carving out of the Barrackpore Police Commissionerate covering the industrial belt on the eastern banks of the Hooghly River in 2012 soon after the Mamata Banerjee government was formed in 2011.
TMC renominated actor-politician Raj Chakraborty in Barrackpore constituency, having won the 2021 polls by a comfortable margin of over 9,000 votes.
The BJP has fielded lawyer Koustav Bagchi to take on the TMC in the primarily urban constituency, setting the pitch for a close contest in the once-CPI(M) bastion.
Claiming that he is 100 per cent confident of wresting the seat from the TMC, Bagchi told PTI, “I have relentlessly worked for the labourers and other people in the area.” Accusing Chakraborty of not being visible in the constituency for the interest of the people, Bagchi said, “I am son of the soil, I am acquainted with every household in the constituency.” The local TMC leadership, however, asserted that Chakraborty has worked for the interest of the electorate and that the Mamata Banerjee government’s welfare measures for the people will ensure re-election of Chakraborty.
Mohit Yadav, who works in a small factory in Barrackpore, said that though there were hardships earlier, peace generally prevailed, with only scattered incidents of scuffles occurring.
“It is the closure of the mills that caused frustration among some people and led them to murky ways,” he told PTI.
Cut-throat competition in supplying construction goods like sand and stone chips and other businesses leads to clashes between groups that then take a political colour, a local CPI(M) worker in Noapara said on condition of anonymity.
He claimed that the TMC leadership’s “snubbing” of sitting MLA Manju Basu by not renominating her has caused some ripples within the Noapara constituency.
Claiming that the party’s decision is final in all such matters, a local TMC leader said this will not have any effect and party nominee Trinankur Bhattacharya will win by a higher margin than the 2021 polls, when Basu won by over 26,000 votes.
The BJP sees an opportunity in this, claiming that divisions within the TMC and free and fair elections under the Election Commission’s strict vigil will ensure their victory in the seat.
Arjun Singh of the BJP is a tough candidate and he is expected to leave no stone unturned to win the seat, though he had lost the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to TMC’s Partha Bhowmick by around 55,000 votes.
His frequent flux from one party to another may, however, not be a positive sign for him at the hustings.
Singh, who was with the TMC earlier, had switched over to the BJP in 2019 and won the Lok Sabha polls that year. He returned to the Mamata Banerjee-led party for a brief period before going back to the saffron brigade just before the 2024 general election.
“These clashes make our lives miserable, we only hope that the elections this time around will not be as violent as previous ones,” said Kajal Das, a septuagenarian resident of Noapara who has seen both the Left and the TMC rule from close quarters.
“The situation has become more tense over the last decade or so,” he said.
Both the TMC and the BJP levelled heated accusations against one another over the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls during the campaign, with the Mamata Banerjee-led party claiming that the Matua population in the region was facing harassment.
The saffron brigade claims that deletions of “fake entries” were affecting the ruling party’s game plan and that is why they were making a hue and cry over it. PTI AMR ACD
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