Kolkata: The candidate she fielded backed out at the last moment. Then the other candidate she supported was arrested by the police in connection with cases dating back almost two decades and sent to judicial custody by …

Kolkata: The candidate she fielded backed out at the last moment. Then the other candidate she supported was arrested by the police in connection with cases dating back almost two decades and sent to judicial custody by a court till a day before the poll campaigning would end.As polling for the by-elections in Nandigram in the Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal is scheduled to be held on October 6 next, Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress – now assigned the name “Mamata All India Trinamool Congress” by the Election Commission – are likely to be conspicuous by absence in the assembly constituency, which was once the springboard of her rise to power in West Bengal.After Sanchita Pradhan De, whom she had fielded as the candidate of her faction of the Trinamool Congress, met Suvendu Adhikari – the chief minister of the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party government – and withdrew from the contest, Mamata announced her support for Milan Pradhan, the Congress’s bet for the bypoll in Nandigram, on Friday. But, just a few hours later, police arrested Milan in connection with 19-year-old cases and presented her in court on Saturday. The court rejected his bail plea and sent him to jail on judicial remand until October 3.The Congress leaders – from the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, in New Delhi to the party’s West Bengal chief, Subhankar Sarkar, in Kolkata – condemned the police action against Milan and accused the ruling BJP in the state and the Centre of “murdering democracy”. Mamata echoed them, noting that the police arrest of the Congress candidate just after she extended support to him raised “serious questions”. She took a dig at the Election Commission and alleged that the BJP was killing democracy every day with “vote loot” and “intimidation” using its “partnership” with the poll agency. Kunal Ghosh, the general secretary of her faction of the Trinamool Congress, alleged that the BJP government had got the police to dig out the 19-year-old cases against the Congress candidate in Nandigram as Mamata’s support for him had scared the saffron party and made it unsure about its prospects in the bypoll.Not only Nandigram: Rabiul Alam Chowdhury, the TMC candidate in Rejinagar, another constituency going to bypolls, also made public his plan to withdraw from the contest early on Saturday, citing organisational weakness and difficulty reaching out to people. He later changed his mind after a call from Mamata.Police, however, arrested an independent candidate – Saiful Alam – in Rejinagar, too, on Saturday in connection with a few-months-old case.Nandigram is a landmark in West Bengal’s politics. An agitation by the farmers to resist the proposed acquisition of about 10000 acres of land by the then Left Front government of the state for the Salim Group of Indonesia to set up a hub of chemical industries had led to violence, and at least 14 people had been killed in firing by police during a crackdown on the protesters on March 14, 2007. Mamata, along with other social organisations, had played a key role in the protest, which had helped the TMC oust the Left Front from power and had catapulted her to the office of the chief minister. Suvendu had then been a close aide of Mamata and had played a key role in TMC’s rise from the 2007-2008 agitation in Nandigram.But much water has since flowed down Haldi, the river that flows by Nandigram. The constituency now has a new claim to fame. This is where Suvendu, who had quit the TMC in December 2020, had contested against Mamata as the BJP’s candidate in the March-April 2021 elections, and beat her by a narrow margin. ‘Murder of democracy’: Kapil Sibal accuses EC of ‘jugalbandi’ with BJP in West Bengal bypollsThis is where he won again in the assembly elections this year, beating the TMC candidate, Pabitra Kar, by over 9500 votes. Suvendu, now chief minister, however, chose to retain his other constituency, Bhabanipur in Kolkata, where he beat his former mentor by over 15000 votes again, and gave up Nandigram, necessitating the bye-elections.If the TMC’s downfall in Nandigram, which had once turned into its citadel, started with the exit of Suvendu from the party in 2021, the party’s dire state ahead of the bye-elections proved how difficult it would be for Mamata to lead it towards a revival, fighting against the ruling BJP’s no-quarters-given policy.The BJP had a landslide victory, winning in 208 of the 294 constituencies in the state in the assembly elections this year, ending the 15-year-long rule of the TMC, which could win only 80 seats. But nearly 60 of the 80 TMC legislators, led by Ritabrata Banerjee, revolted just after the elections, splitting the party. The EC has named Ritabrata’s faction the Democratic Trinamool Congress. The commission has also frozen the TMC’s ‘twin-flower’ poll symbol and allotted ‘a football player’ for Mamata’s faction and an ‘envelope’ for Ritabrata’s.“I know how to get elections done,” Suvendu said recently, vowing to ensure a landslide victory for the BJP candidate, Hasi Rani Rath, the mother of his slain personal assistant, Chandranath Rath, in the bye-elections in Nandigram by a huge margin. He also reached out to the minority community, which accounts for nearly 25% of the voters in Nandigram: “This is an opportunity for you to work with our government for the development and welfare of people.”“The BJP is well-entrenched in power, and Mamata’s TMC is in a state of disarray. It is therefore baffling why the BJP is going the extra mile for the bye-elections, particularly in Nandigram, where it is sure to have a cakewalk,” political analyst Subhamoy Maitra told DH. “Maybe the chief minister wants a much bigger margin than his own to send out a message across and beyond West Bengal that not only the majority community, but the minority community, too, started supporting the BJP.”Congress, however, is not ready to give the BJP a walkover in Nandigram. “Milan will contest from jail. Our workers will campaign for him across the constituency,” Sarkar, the president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, said. “Our candidate was told by the police officials that he would be released if he withdrew from the contest, but he said that he would keep fighting against the BJP’s politics of intimidation.”

Source: Deccan Herald