Left Ready to Reclaim Bastion in West Bengal Panchayat Polls

Galsi, Burdwan (West Bengal): Basudeb Majhi “is not a coward but a fighter”. In the forthcoming West Bengal panchayat election, Majhi and other Left activists in the former Red bastion of Galsi, in the Burdwan district, want to “reclaim their lost ground”.

More than 125 km from the state capital of Kolkata and 25 km from Burdwan town, Galsi is a rural hamlet where Left activists are campaigning tirelessly to rehoist the Red flag.

“We will win in Khano and Kurkova gram panchayats, and a neck-to-neck fight is expected in Adra, Sakinandi, Dologram and Sako. We are relatively weak in Masjidpur Gram Panchayat, where terror reigns,” Majhi, a former head of Galsi 2 Panchayet Samity and a popular CPI(M) Scheduled Caste activist, tells Newsclick.

Mentioning the “local resistance” against the TMC’s “sinister design”, he says, “When outside TMC leaders threatened Masjidpur residents with dire consequences yesterday and said that they would break my feet for leading the CPI(M) in the area, TMC workers from my village of Belan said that they have good relations with me,” says Majhi, who cultivates paddy on five bighas twice a year.

But CPI(M) leaders took no chance and kept vigil with bamboo sticks to resist any TMC, he adds. “This kind of resistance was unheard of in 2018.”

Majhi alleges that “TMC goons are led by Gul Mohammad Mollah and aided by Jyoti, Kanchan and Aspi, who had attacked Left activists in Belan several times.

The Left Front’s Tarur Gram Panchayat candidate Jiban Majhi, an agricultural labourer, alleges that TMC men in his village are middlemen in the local rice trade. “They have amassed a huge fortune by exploiting farmers, who never get the right prices for their produce,” he tells Newsclick.

The fertile tracts of Burdwan were once considered the state’s Red bastion. However, according to Left activists, unimaginable terror reigned Burdwan district after 2011. In the 2018 panchayet election, they allege that voting was held in only a few places with counting disrupted at most booths.

However, 2023 is different with the Left campaigning in full throttle.

“The Left has fielded candidates in more than 93% of the seats in the Burdwan district,” CPI(M) district secretary Saiyaad Hossain, a native of Galsi and the party’s former zonal secretary, tells Newsclick.

He explains how the “BJP is supporting the TMC on seats” it is not contesting. “The BJP has put up candidates in 45% of the seats. Knowing that the TMC’s core base of scheduled tribes and castes is reducing, the BJP is trying hard to divide the votes so that ultimately the Trinamool wins these seats,”

CPIN(M)’s Kurkuva Gram Panchayat candidate Uttam Pal, who grows paddy on five bighas, alleges that TMC middlemen eat into farmers’ profits.

“We are ready to fight if TMC hooligans try to loot votes. We will set their motorbikes on fire the moment they enter the village,” he tells Newsclick.

Integrated Child Development Services helper Pushpa Dey (55) is the CPI(M)’s Panchayet Samity candidate from Bhuri. “Wherever we go to campaign, more than 25-50 people attend our meetings and rallies at the gram panchayat level.”

In the 2013 panchayat election, a tribal CPI(M) activist Madan Soren was tortured to death in Bhuri, she alleges. “The prime accused, Subodh Ghosh, owns properties worth crores in the village and Burdwan town. He is the TMC’s local leader, threatening Left activists with dire consequences.”

Interestingly, former landlords led by Ghosh had taken the pattas of villagers like Jiten Pargre and Biswanath Khetrapal, the CPI(M) candidate from Bhuri.

The present panchayat samiti also cut down trees planted by the CPI(M) on a 1.5-km road before 2011, Dey alleges. “Yet party members and activists are united in fighting the TMC in Galsi 1 and 2 panchayats,” she adds.