TMC aims to storm the saffron citadel. These seats are voting on 19 April.
As North Bengal gears up for the first phase of elections on 19 April, both the BJP and the Trinamool Congress are trying hard to read what the tea leaves say.
After all, there are 154 tea gardens in the Dooars region of Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri districts which go to the polls along with Cooch Behar and its workers and their families hold the key to the electoral fortunes of political parties. For both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress, the aim is to have a robust start to the long-drawn political battle.
While the Trinamool Congress aims to storm the saffron citadel this time, the BJP, which had won all three seats of Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar in the 2019 elections, aims to protect its turf.
ALIPURDUAR
In Alipurduar, a reserved seat for the Scheduled Tribe (ST) community, the BJP has fielded MLA Manoj Tigga, replacing the incumbent John Barla against whom there were allegations of non-performance.
The Trinamool has nominated Prakash Chik Baraik, its Rajya Sabha MP who has deep roots among the tea-growing labour.
“The BJP will get a jolt of 440 volts this time. Ask the people what has its MP done over the past five years and how much of its MPLAD fund has he spent? On the other hand, Mamata Banerjee has laid special focus on the tea belt and has come up with houses for workers (Cha Sundari), distributed land deeds,” Baraik told The Sunday Guardian.
The Trinamool Congress is showcasing the introduction of the project which aims to give homestead pattas to 23,000 tea garden workers and financial assistance up to Rs 1.20 lakh for construction of dwelling units under Cha-Sundari extension scheme.
“So far, under the ongoing Cha-Sundari Scheme, construction of 4,022 single-storied dwelling units in 17 sites in Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri districts have been approved and construction of 1,171 single storied dwelling units have been completed,” West Bengal Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya had stated in the 2024-2025 state Budget speech.
Baraik is also talking about the Tea Tourism and Allied Business Policy of the Mamata Banerjee Government which aims promoting eco-friendly tourism in the unutilized and fallow lands of the tea gardens.
“The state Government has done a lot for the tea garden workers. We give Rs 500 per month as financial assistance from the Government and free ration,” explains Baraik.
Manoj Tigga, the soft-spoken BJP MLA from Madarighat, who is contesting the Lok Sabha seat, said: “We had won the Alipurduar seat by more than 2.4 lakh votes. We will win it again this time. The Trinamool Congress Government is cheating the people of this region.
On one hand they say there are no closed tea gardens while on the other hand they say we will open the closed gardens. So, which one is correct? They are also misleading people with the land pattas. People in the tea gardens in Darjeeling hills have also objected to the patta where they will be given a land of only five decimals,” Tigga said.
Manoj Tigga claimed that the distress among tea garden workers is “due to the state Government, which is blocking the Centre’s welfare schemes”.
“The state administration is providing funds from the Centre’s housing scheme but propagating this as a state’s assistance. They are depriving garden workers of various benefits in connivance with planters,” the BJP contestant alleged.
One worry for the BJP is whether John Barla, the BJP incumbent who was replaced, will give whole-hearted support to Tigga.
Observers say that even though the BJP won the Lok Sabha seat in 2019 and managed to clinch all seven Assembly seats in Alipurduar in 2021, the Trinamool Congress was able to win 58 out of the 64 panchayats in 2023. In 2022, the Trinamool Congress won 16 out of the 20 seats in Alipurduar municipality and all 18 seats in the Falakata civic body.
Out of the seven Assembly segments, the Trinamool Congress has MLAs in five. These are Mekliganj (SC), Dhupguri (SC), Jalpaiguri (SC), Rajganj (SC), and Mal (ST). The Bharatiya Janata Party has two MLAs [Maynaguri (SC) and Dabgram-Phulbari].
JALPAIGURI
In Jalpaiguri, the fight is between the BJP incumbent Dr. Jayanta Roy, and Nirmal Chandra Roy of the Trinamool Congress, while Debraj Burman is the CPIM candidate. According to the 2011 census, Jalpaiguri has 37 per cent SC population while the ST population comprises 17 per cent of the district.
Dr. Jayanta Roy is a local physician enjoying immense goodwill, while Nirmal Chandra Roy of the Trinamool Congress is hoping that Mamata magic will see him through. In 2019, Dr Jayanta Kumar Roy was able to secure close to 51 per cent of the votes in Jalpaiguri. The Trinamool Congress stood second with 38 per cent of the votes.
While observers say that Jayanta Roy and the BJP have an edge in Jalpaiguri even today, the Trinamool Congress is mounting a spirited fight which has led many to call the contest neck-and-neck. If the seat swings either way, it would not come as a surprise. It is also not a surprise, therefore, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is among the BJP’s top campaigners in Jalpaiguri.
The Trinamool Congress however pillories the Prime Minister for not visiting or even mentioning the freak tornado on April 1 which rendered thousands homeless in the district in his election rallies in West Bengal. The Trinamool Congress is contrasting it with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who made a midnight dash to Jalpaiguri “to stand by the affected people while the BJP ignored it”.
COOCH BEHAR
Cooch Behar is the only seat in north Bengal which I.N.D.I.A. bloc constituent Congress has put up a candidate against its bloc partner the Trinamool. Here, a lady candidate Piya Roy Chowdhury is contesting on a Congress ticket. However, the fight is between Nisith Pramanik of the BJP who is also the Union Minister of State for Home, and Jagadish Barma Basuniya of the Trinamool Congress. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Nisith Pramanik swung nearly 32per cent votes to dislodge the Trinamool Congress from this SC-reserved Lok Sabha seat.
Re-nominated as a Lok Sabha poll candidate, Pramanik takes on Jagadish Barma Basunia, who is the Trinamool Congress’s face of the Rajbanshi community and the sitting MLA of Sitai.
Once considered a fortress of the Left Front partner Forward Bloc, which won the seat for an unbroken 32 years from 1977 to 2009, Cooch Behar constituency currently remains a BJP stronghold, with five of the seven Assembly segments in its kitty despite Trinamool Congress’ landslide victory in the 2021 state polls.
Elections are not a particularly happy occurrence for the people of Cooch Behar district.
Having suffered large-scale violence before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the 2021 Assembly elections and the 2023 Panchayat elections, there is an air of foreboding among voters here ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The CISF firing during the Assembly polls at Sitalkuchi in 2021, which killed four youths, has created a fear about poll-related violence in this Bangladesh-bordering district.
After the Trinamool Congress’s poll debacle in the tea-growing region and north Bengal as a whole in 2019, the party has sought to regain lost ground by working on issues related to land rights and livelihoods of workers which yielded dividends for the ruling party in the 2021 Assembly polls.
“Compared to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Trinamool Congress is likely to fare better this time,” says political analyst Subhomay Maitra.
Only time will tell which party will have the last word on June 4 when the results are declared.