By Tirthankar Mitra
KOLKATA: Former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Ganguly who always created controversies during his tenure by using strong language against the Trinamool Congress government and its leaders, continues to do the same as the BJP candidate for Lok Sabha in Tamluk constituency of West Bengal. Ganguly’s resignation and joining the poll fray is one of the much discussed topics in the state in the current elections.
Trinamool Congress leaders and activists are criticising him day and night. Small wonder, once he made clear his political inclination, the days are over when he was looked upto as a messiah by some litigants and a few of them shed tears on his stepping down.
Things have come to such a pass that the BJP candidate had to move Calcutta High Court and secure a direction of no coercive action to be taken against him till June 15. The former judge had to move court after cases were registered against him and a few others by a local TMC functionary alleging attempt to murder and molestation when he was going to submit his nomination.
At Tamluk and in constituencies far away from it, some of the observations by Ganguly together with some of the judgments he had passed focusing on corruption of TMC leaders are now campaign fodder for the BJP, Congress and Left against the TMC government. And there is little to say in reply either by his Trinamool Congress opponent at Tamluk or the senior BJP leaders.
Ganguly, it may be recalled has earned respect during his tenure cutting across the ideological divide. PCC chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that he wanted to see, Ganguly as the state chief minister. The PCC chief had spoken before Ganguly had joined the saffron camp. But no such niceties were forthcoming from the TMC camp with the chief minister without naming him said at a meeting “There are men eating tigers as well as those which devour jobs “.
In the din and bustle on the cash for teaching jobs, the sorry plight of growers of flowers and betel leaf is ignored. These farmers are peeved about these two products not being declared as agricultural ones, stranglehold of GST and not getting full crop insurance though betel leaf has already a thriving market in Middle East, Thailand and even Europe.
While there is no mention of these farmers in the election speeches of the BJP candidate, they find a passing mention by the TMC nominee. Debangshu Bhattachrya. Sayan Bandopadhayay, CPI(M) nominee has assured also that the plight of these farmers will be bettered if INDIA coalition supported Left candidate is elected.
Come May 25, two newcomers in electoral politics will take the field against each other. Neither the BJP candidate Abhijit Ganguly nor his Trinamool rival, Debangshu Bhattacharya have contested a poll battle earlier.
Their commonalities end here. While Bhattacharya, is a spokesman for his party, Ganguly was elevated to be a judge after years of pleading for litigants in the courts. Arguably, as a party spokesman, Bhattacharya is more conversant about the issues doing the rounds than his political opponent who has a better grasp of the points of law which led to the custodial detention of the scam accused.
Incidentally, it is within the Tamluk Lok Sabha that Nandigram Assembly segment is located. This is the back of beyond hamlet which became infamous post a massacre to make way for a chemical hub which the then ruling Left Front felt would turn around the economy of West Bengal.
If Trinamool Congress and its supremo Mamata Banerjee considered Nandigram its citadel, an unpleasant surprise awaited her round the corner. Contesting from Nandigram in 2021 Assembly elections, Mamata Banerjee lost to her erstwhile Cabinet colleague Suvendu Adhikari who had switched loyalty to BJP.
Adhikari went on to be the leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly. It is another matter that the entire treasury bench dubbed him a “load shedding MLA” as the lights had gone off when the vote counting was in progress. The Nandigram electoral reverse was a bitter pill for the TMC supremo to swallow. She moved court challenging the result and in a recent election meeting said that she is awaiting the verdict.
Tamluk Lok Sabha once represented by Subhendu’s brother Dibyendu Adhikari has been a fiefdom of the family. When a “safe seat” was being looked for the former judge, Tamluk was the first choice. Unaffected by the Modi wave in 2019, a TMC nominee was elected from Tamluk. Though the Adhikaris may consider it to be their stronghold, 2021 elections results saw TMC MLAs occupying four Assembly segments out of seven though Suvendu Adhikari had by then joined the saffron camp.
Despite electoral arithmetic favouring Bhattacharya, the TMC nominee is only too aware that he is faced with an uphill task. A political lightweight vis-a-vis the former judge besides being decades junior to his BJP opponent, the young TMC candidate has to deal with the challenge thrown by Ganguly as a fighter against TMC corruption. 28 year old Debangshu has thus a tough task in convincing the voters about the credibility of TMC as a party which works for people’s good.
Medinipur is another important Lok Sabha constituency which is going to polls also on May 25 in the sixth phase. Voters of Medinipur Lok Sabha are witnessing a spillover of glamour quotient in the run up to the polling day. Neither TMC nominee actress June Malia nor the BJP candidate fashion designer Agnimitra Paul are green horns in politics.
While Malia represents Medinipur (Purba) as a TMC legislator in the state Assembly, Paul had been a BJP MLA in Asansol before she lost to Shatrughan Sinha in a Lok Sabha by-election. But the commonalities do not end here.
Intra- party squabbles continue to trouble both the candidates though it is more pronounced in the case of the BJP nominee Paul. Parachuted to Medinipur constituency following decision of the party leadership, state unit chief Sukanta Majumdar and leader of the Opposition, Subhendu Adhikari, she is at odds with the organisational set up put in place by the present BJP MP and former state party chief Dilip Ghosh.
A less than crowded election campaign meeting of Union railway minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw in Paul ‘s support at Kharagpur was a pointer to the lack of coordination in the saffron camp. As for the Trinamool election candidate, things have come to such a pass that it took party supremo Mamata Banerjee to pour oil on troubled waters.
On a previous tour, the party supremo, Banerjee asked district TMC chief Sujoy Hazra and Malia to settle their differences. Such acrimony is widespread as Medinipur municipality chief, Soumen Khan reported to be in Malia’s camp does not see eye with another local leader Biswanath Pandav.
As a fallout, Pandav despite being the party’s Medinipur town unit chief has been excluded in the local election committee. It is headed by Sourav Bose reported to be in Malia’s faction but the politicking augurs ill for an all out efforts to wrest the Medinipur Lok Sabha from the BJP.
In this backdrop, INDIA coalition supported CPI nominee Biplab Bhatta is aiming to expand his support base. But then the support base and organisational strength of both the Left and the Congress, an essential precondition to electoral success is too weak to offer any competition.
In 2019 Lok Sabha election, BJP nominee Ghosh led in six out of seven Assembly segments of Medinipur Lok Sabha. But the trend reversed in 2021 Assembly polls with TMC nominees winning six constituencies thereby setting the electoral arithmetic in Malia’s favour.
Unaddressed issues are galore before this Lok Sabha goes to the polls even if they have taken a backseat as the voters are somewhat dazzled by the glamour of the principal contestants, one a silver screen actress and the other a fashion designer. Belda municipality is yet to be set up while there is a longstanding demand for a railway overbridge at Belda-Kesiari.
Traffic congestion and lack of open spaces are banes in Medinipur town. The much talked about industrial unit is yet to be set up at Salboni. Indiscriminate deforestation in Jungle Mahal has taken its toll in this constituency. Elephant herds lumbering into Medinipur town and parts of Salboni are not rare sights. (IPA Service)