Singur and Nandigram will go to the polls as West Bengal enters the second phase of elections on Thursday. The people’s resistance in Nandigram and Singur to the industrialization bid by the Left Front government has already caused a major change in the otherwise stable political equation in the state.
In the heartland of Bengal where 17 constituencies will go to poll on May 7, this has become a major political issue. The Left has campaigned against the Trina Mul Congress (TMC)-led opposition charging them with being anti-industry and opposed to all economic development..
Mamata Banerjee has tried to refute the charge saying that TMC is in favour of industrialization, but not at the cost of farmers’ interest. In Kolkata and elsewhere the CPIM has been putting up photographs of the Nano car along with a slogan that those who were responsible for forcing its factory to relocate Gujarat, should be punished by the people.
Sporadic clashes in Nandigram in the last few days indicate that there is a strong possibility of further violence on election day. While campaigning in Singur and its adjacent areas yesterday Banerjee tried to tackle the issue of industrialization head on. Citing the case of closed Dunlop factory in Hoogly, she said that the ‘champions of industrialization’ had done nothing to reopen thethousands of closed and sick industrial units in the state.
The second phase in West Bengal election will take place in Murshidabad, Nadia, Howrah, Hoogly, Burdwan, East Midnapur and Birbhum districts. Though Nandigram and Singur come under East Midnapur and Hoogly districts respectively, last year’s panchayat and municipal elections show that the impact of peoples’ resistance to the Left regime in its industrialization bid was felt mostly in those areas. So, the Left is facing a stiff challenge here to retain most of the seats they won last time.
According to Shyamal Chakravarty, member of CPIM central committee, of the 14 seats where election was held on April 30, the Left is confident of retaining at least nine seats.
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They have almost given up hope of winning Darjeeling and South Malda, and were not sure of the outcome of Raigunj, Balurghat and North Malda. The opposition, especially the BJP is hopeful of a surprise result in Alipurduar where large number of tribal voters boycotted poll.
Now, in the second phase the Left will be facing an uphill task in improving upon that. In Murshidabad Pranab Mukherjee and Adhir Chowdhury, two heavyweight leaders of Congress are comfortably placed to retain their seats. In Nadia, the popular BJP leader Satyabrata Mukherjee’s presence in Krishnanagar has turned it into an interesting triangular fight between CPIM, TMC and BJP. Because of infighting in CPIM they had to suspend Alokesh Das, their sitting MP from Nabadwip (now renamed as Ranaghat after delimitation), thus making it difficult for them to defend themselves against the TMC onslaught.
The seven constituencies of Hooghly, Howrah and East Midnapur are also posing a serious challenge to the Left. Party insiders have already given up Tamluk and Contai, both seats come under East Midnapur, where the Left was virtually wiped out in the panchayat election. Last year the CPIM also lost Guskara municipality to TMC.
Guskara is located in the heart of rural Burdwan, the traditionally strong base of CPIM indicating that the anti-Left politics has started eroding their traditional support base. It would be interesting to watch in this time’s poll how far it has penetrated there. But otherwise, seats like Burdwan, Durgapur and Asansol and Bolpur and Birbhum are relatively safe seats for the Left. seats in South Bengal.