Kolkata: From Jadavpur in Kolkata to Bolpur in the Birbhum district of West Bengal, it takes a little over four hours. But, the 173 km distance has been entwined for decades, thanks to the politics that keep connecting the two seemingly unrelated places.
Right from 1971 to 2014, the CPI (M) never lost from Bolpur in one of their longest unbreakable stints in the state’s history of Lok Sabha elections. And in those 43 years, Jadavpur first came into play in 1984.
From 1971 to 1984, Dr Saradish Roy had won four consecutive Lok Sabha elections from Bolpur, before he passed away in 1985. But, something else had happened in between.
A young advocate, who had joined active politics in 1968, had contested the Lok Sabha elections as an independent candidate supported by the CPI (M) from the Bardhaman seat and won. He shifted to the Jadavpur constituency and contested from there in 1977 and again won. This time as a CPI (M) candidate. In the next 1980 polls he kept his winning streak intact from Jadavpur, but only to be cut short in the 1984 general elections.
The advocate, who had by then emerged as an erudite parliamentarian, was Somnath Chatterjee. And the giant killer from Jadavpur in 1984 was, Mamata Banerjee.
Soon after the defeat, Chatterjee switched base from Jadavpur to Bolpur and when Dr Saradish Roy passed away the following year, he won the by-election to the Bolpur Lok Sabha seat and went on to become a 10-time MP, seven times from Bolpur. In 2008, the Left withdrew its support from the UPA government at the Centre, but defying party lines, Somnath Chatterjee continued to remain the Speaker of Lok Sabha.
The CPI (M) expelled one of its stellar members for not toeing party lines, but the Left continued its grip on Bolpur. In the 2009 elections, Bolpur was listed as a Scheduled Caste seat after the delimitation process, and Ram Chandra Dome won.
A deviation was also happening since Chatterjee’s exit from Bolpur. Somnath Chatterjee had won the 2004 elections by over three lakh votes, but Dome’s winning margin slipped below one lakh in 2009. The BJP also first made its presence felt by securing around 6.49% of votes. The alarm that sounded off came true for CPI (M) when Dome lost to Trinamool’s Anupam Hazra in the 2014 elections by over two lakh votes.
Three things happened simultaneously in 2014. CPI (M) lost its Bolpur citadel of four decades. The BJP doubled its vote share to 15.13%. And Trinamool Congress found a new leader for Birbhum in the name of Anubrata Mondal!
It was Anubrata, who had virtually engineered Anupam Hazra, a green horn’s win, from Bolpur. In a twist in the seat’s tale, by the time the 2019 polls were knocking on the doors, serious differences had cropped up between Anupam and Anubrata leading to the former’s switch over to BJP.
Jadavpur again came back crossing roads with Bolpur. The saffron party made Anupam a candidate from the Jadavpur Lok Sabha seat. It is a different story that he lost to Triamool’s Mimi Chakraborty.
This time, Anubrata Mondal is behind bars. With the Trinamool strongman lodged at the Tihar Jail in connection with coal smuggling cases, something unthinkable happened days ahead of the polls. BJP flags were seen fluttering in the Nichupatty locality of Bolpur. This is where Anubrata’s house is located.
Asit Kumar Mal is the person whom Mamata Banerjee has reposed faith in to get her Bolpur. Asit had been a Congress MLA from Hasan Assembly seat from 1996 to 2011, before switching sides in 2014. He was defeated by Milton Rashid of Congress when he contested the Assembly elections in 2016 on a Trinamool ticket. Within three years Asit saw his name written on the walls of Bolpur and won the 2019 general elections, thanks to Anubrata and his electioneering skills as well as the Anubrata-Anupam tiff leading to Anupam’s exit from TMC.
Facing Asit Mal is Shyamali Pradhan of the CPI(M), a former MLA from Nanoor Assembly constituency, and Priya Saha of the BJP, who has unsuccessfully tried her luck from the Sainthia Assembly seat twice.
The CPI (M) had ended a distant third with 6.29% votes against the whopping 40.57% clocked by the runner-up BJP in 2019 in Bolpur. The party is yet to shepherd back its flock, which had en masse switched principally to BJP. The saffron party is pinning its hope on the local support to bridge the gap of 7.28% votes that separate them from TMC. Asit knows there is no Anubrata this time, but his only solace is TMC’s stellar performance in the 2021 Assembly polls, when it won all seven Assembly seats that comprise the Bolpur Lok Sabha constituency, convincingly. On May 13, Bolpur is up for grabs.
And so is the second seat of the district, which is distinctly known for its red earth texture. They call it Lal Matir Desh – the land of red soil.
The Lok Sabha seat of Birbhum was always either with the Congress or with the CPI (M). From 1952 to 1971 it was the Congress and then from 1971 to 2009, Birbhum belonged to the Reds till an actor-turned-politician put a break on it.
When tinseltown diva Shatabdi Roy adorned the robes of Trinamool Congress, little did anyone think that she could deliver an upset result. The CPI (M) had fielded Braja Mukherjee replacing their six-time sitting MP from the seat Dr Ram Chandra Dome. Dome had to be shifted to neighbouring Bolpur as the seat got reserved for the scheduled caste following a delimitation exercise.
With the Left Front at the helm of affairs in Bengal, Shatabdi Roy pulled out a real surprise by defeating Braja Mukherjee in 2009. And then there was no looking back. Mamata got her trump card from Birbhum and Shatabdi has been delivering since.
Two back-to-back wins in 2014 and 2019 followed and that too from a seat, which always grabs headlines for deep-rooted factionalism and infighting within the Trinamool Congress. But again, there was one galvanizing factor – Anubrata Mondal (popularly known as Keshto). Keshto’da knew how to silence all dissidence when elections came.
Only this time, there is no music from the Birbhum strongman ringing in Shatabdi’s ears. Instead, she is facing Milton Rashid of the Congress and BJP’s Debtanu Bhattacharya.
In 2019, Shabtabdi had already tasted the hiccups when BJP’s Dudhkumar Mondal came breathing down her neck with smart leads from four of the seven Assembly segments. Only when counting started in the Assembly segments of Nalhati, Murarai and Hasan, did she breathe a sigh of relief. The three Muslim minority-dominated Assembly segments finally gave Trinamool Congress the decisive edge over BJP. This time, the equation could change with Milton contesting the polls. He is not only the former MLA of Hasan, but also an accepted face across the area.
For the BJP, things had gone wrong in Birbhum this time. Dudhkumar, the face of the party in the district, was denied a ticket and it went to Debashis Dhar, an IPS officer who resigned only days before his name was announced. Debashis was the former police superintendent of Cooch Behar when the infamous Sitalkuchi firing incident took place during the 2021 Assembly elections. Five villagers were shot dead after CISF personnel opened fire outside a polling booth.
Debhashis had filed his nomination even before getting the mandatory clearance from the state government. The Election Commission cancelled his nomination. Sensing trouble, the saffron party had in the meantime fielded Debtanu Bhattacharya in case things went south. Debtanu, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2021 Assembly elections from Amta in Howrah, is now facing Shatabdi and Milton.
The outcome of Bolpur and Birbhum seats in Bengal will be closely watched on June 4, not only to see if both Asit Mal and Shatabdi Roy manage to hold on to their winning streaks, but also about the political relevance of Trinamool Congress in the district, minus Anubrata Mondal aka Keshto.
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