Diamond Harbour: The South 24 Parganas district, West Bengal’s largest, is sunflower country, and its fields are full of the yellow bloom this election season. But the blooming flowers can’t hide the fact that it is also the district most affected by political violence in the state — local residents call it their primary fear as they gear up to vote in the Bengal assembly polls.
Political violence — including murders, assault, arson and ransacking — has long afflicted Bengal’s politics, but South 24 Parganas has led the way since the 2018 panchayat elections.
According to police reports filed with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, accessed by ThePrint, South 24 Parganas witnessed 178 incidents of political violence in 2018, 157 in 2019, 78 between January and August 2020, and 22 between 27 February and 30 March this year, when the assembly election campaign was gathering pace.
These numbers are the highest across all the districts of Bengal in all the respective time periods.
ThePrint travelled to Diamond Harbour, Kulpi, Kakdwip and Patharpratima areas of this district to see how this history of violence is shaping the current campaign, and whether Mamata Banerjee’s TMC can retain its vice-like grip on its 31 assembly seats here.
Also read: We love Didi, but… says Jangalmahal, a TMC bastion where BJP’s giving Mamata nightmares
Trinamool’s impregnable fortress
South 24 Parganas is home to four Lok Sabha and 31 assembly seats. Eighteen of the assembly segments are predominantly rural, while the other 13 are a mix of urban and semi-urban areas. At least 17 constituencies have over 30 per cent Muslim population, of which at least seven have more than 45 per cent Muslims.
The district has been a Trinamool Congress stronghold since the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, and has remained key to Mamata Banerjee’s virtual monopoly over south Bengal.
This time around, South 24 Parganas is voting in the second, third and fourth phases on 1, 6 and 10 April respectively, with Diamond Harbour, the parliamentary constituency of Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, set to vote in the third phase.
The Trinamool Congress began dominating this district since the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, when it first defeated the Left Front, which had been in power in the state since 1977. Since then, Mamata Banerjee’s party has consolidated its position, so much so that many local residents say no opposition has grown here.
The BJP made strong efforts to increase its presence since the 2018 panchayat elections, but even when it won a surprising 18 seats out of Bengal’s 42 in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it failed to lead a single assembly segment out of the 31 in South 24 Parganas.
According to the West Bengal state election commission, in the 2018 panchayat polls, the TMC won 22 and 24 panchayat samiti seats respectively in Diamond Harbour 1 and Diamond Harbour 2 without facing a single challenger, while in Kakdwip, Kulpi and Patharpratima, around 50 per cent of seats remained uncontested.
In fact, of the district’s 310 gram panchayats, 292 are under Trinamool control.
Also read: Women are Mamata Banerjee’s core voters, but this time many want to ‘give Modi a chance’
Villagers ‘haven’t voted in years, were denied Amphan relief’
Some villagers in these areas who claim to be Trinamool voters allege they were not allowed to exercise their franchise here for years.
“I have been a Trinamool worker for 20 years. But now, I have joined the BJP. We tolerated everything, including giving a cut from the cash we receive through government schemes. In 2018, we had seen unprecedented violence. Despite being Trinamool voters, we were not allowed to vote,” said Ranjit Kumar Bansh, a 55-year-old primary school teacher in Kakdwip.
Most villagers talk about the fear of frequent clashes, and also make allegations of ‘cut money’, ‘syndicates’ and ‘turf wars’ against the ruling party. Some also allege that they were denied financial assistance from the government after Cyclone Amphan hit their villages in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic last year.
Kakdwip, Patharpratima and Diamond Harbour were some of the worst-affected areas, owing to their proximity to the Sunderbans and the confluence of the Ganga/Hooghly river system with the Bay of Bengal.
Jayanta Nayek, a fisherman in Pratapaditya gram panchayat area in Kakdwip claimed his house was captured by local Trinamool leaders and he was displaced as he protested against the corruption in distribution of government’s financial aid after Amphan.
“My family now lives at our relative’s house. The day I went to the panchayat to register a complaint, the goons came and drove me out from my home,” he said.
“I have been with Didi for decades, but first my house was badly damaged in Amphan, and now it has been a year since I have not been able to enter my own house,” Nayek added.
However, this angst doesn’t seem to be hurting the TMC’s prospects too badly. Bisweswari Tanti, a woman in Harichanda village in Kulpi, who has a small piece of land where she grows sunflowers, echoed Nayek’s words but said she wasn’t leaving Mamata’s side.
“We never knew anyone other than Didi. But see what she has done to us. I can tell you, I have not voted in the past 10 years,” she said. But Tanti went on to say that she was never a part of CPI(M), nor did she join the BJP. “I am still a Trinamool supporter,” she added.
Prabir Jana, who runs a small shop in Madhab Ganj deep inside the Patharpratima area, said there is no trace of the BJP in the area and the voters are still with the Trinamool Congress.
“We did not get the full Amphan assistance money and we also paid a cut from our cash schemes. But, in our area, there is only Trinamool Congress. We have to be with them,” he said.
Also read: Mamata promoted cut money, now her party fleeces even onion & potato sellers: Babul Supriyo
Trinamool claims ‘exaggerations’
The BJP has claimed in an internal report accessed by ThePrint that at least nine of its workers and local leaders were killed in South 24 Parganas between December 2018 and April 2020. But the Trinamool Congress calls this an “exaggeration”. However, these claims are not reflected in the police reports cited above, and could not be independently verified.
“In the past five years, there had been no incidents of major violence in the area, barring some stray incidents. We will win at least 28 seats here, and in the others, we are addressing whatever problems there are,” said Saokat Mollah, Trinamool’s youth president for the district and a close associate of Abhishek Banerjee.
Abhishek has addressed over five rallies in the area and is set to attend more, while the CM herself will begin campaigning in the area after 3 April, Mollah said. He also pointed out that a scheduled rally by Union Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah in Diamond Harbour on 30 March was cancelled, and now, PM Modi is likely to hold a couple of rallies after 1 April.
Reacting to allegations made by villagers, such as ‘cut money’ and non-receipt of Amphan relief, Mollah said: “These are stray incidents. Some panchayat members tried to steal villagers’ money. But Didi has taken strict action against them. There is no chance of the opposition making any inroads here.”
The challenger and its own problems
While the BJP is hopeful of giving the TMC a tough fight in the district, it is facing its own set of problems, the biggest of which is factionalism. Seven of its candidates are Trinamool turncoats, who defected to the BJP a few months before the elections, including Dipak Halder, the sitting TMC MLA who is now the BJP’s candidate from Diamond Harbour assembly constituency.
Local BJP leaders have been complaining about the choice of candidates in Falta, Satgachia and Mathurapur.
“We would have had an edge in at least 20 constituencies in the district, but the candidate selection by the party’s senior leaders spoiled our chances badly. Now, we may have a chance in only seven-eight seats,” said a district BJP leader on the condition of anonymity.
“The party inducted some anti-socials like Babu Master (a local strongman who has been accused of many crimes including murder, attempt to murder and abduction, but never convicted) whom we fought for so many years. He killed and injured our men. The same man now walks with 11 security guards around him. How can we accept these things?” the leader asked.
However, Abhijit Das, a senior leader and former district president for the BJP in South 24 Parganas, said party workers will have to follow discipline as the party runs on a regimented set up.
“We have protested against some decisions. But now, we have to work together. There is a sense of fear among the people. They are apprehensive of post-poll violence. We are trying to convince them. Central forces are also here to take confidence-building measures,” Das said.
The Election Commission has deployed 70 companies of central forces (over 2,000 personnel) in the four constituencies — Kakdwip, Patharpratima, Gosaba and Sagar — that will vote in the second phase Thursday.
(Edited by Shreyas Sharma)
Also read: Job-starved Bengal wants employment & not free ration, says Mamata shouldn’t have let Tatas go