LF infighting, Nandigram to influence Joynagar outcome

Continuing violence in Nandigram, West Bengal's festering wound, is likely to influence the minds of voters in Joynagar (SC) Lok Sabha constituency which goes to the polls on May 13.  

The seat has remained a bastion of the RSP, a constituent of the ruling Left Front in the state, with the party's Sanat Kumar Mondal have been winning since 1980 with widening victory margins.  

Mondal had won the 2004 election by polling 450,043 votes (55.8 per cent) and won by a margin of 230,521 votes.  But this time he has been "rested" by the party on health grounds and substituted by Nimai Barman.  But Joynagar's political profile began to change after the issue centering farmland acquisition occupied West Bengal's centrestage.       

"We are scared that Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-led government might acquire land for proposed Barasat-Raichak highway," James Naskar, a local, said.         

With a sizeable number of voters having ancestral homes in East Midnapore district where Nandigram is located, the mood was against the ruling Left Front, political observers pointed out. 

Besides, the tension between the CPI-M and RSP, which had led to the death of the daughter-in-law of state Irrigation minister and RSP leader Subhas Naskar in a bomb explosion, could benefit the opposition candidate Tarun Mondal.  Mondal is an Independent though he has been fielded by the SUCI (a party not registered with the Election Commission) and backed by the Trinamool Congress-Congress combine.         

BJP's Nirode Chandra Halder is a also in the fray.  RSP's candidate in Joynagar, Nimai Barman brushes aside the allegations and speculations. "It was the result of minor differences of opinion here. It has been patched up and our party activists are working hard to secure win," Barman said.         

"The wound that was created last year has not healed and their workers are at loggerheads with each other at the grassroots level. Voters would prefer me," said Mondal.         

This turned the tide for TC and SUCI in the panchayat polls which gave them big leads in Gosaba, Kultali, Joynagar, Canning West, Canning East and Magrahat assembly segments and while the LF candidate was ahead in Basanti assembly segment.  

TC chief Mamata Banerjee and Tripura Chief Minister of CPI-M party campaigned here to woo 11,43,648 voters of seven assembly segments comprising overwhelmingly rural areas. The arithmatic of the alliance between Congress and Trinamool Congress who are backing Mondal appeared to tilt in his favour as the opposition had won the panchayat polls in South 24-Parganas district.         

Mandal, an MP since 1980, who worked hard to build up the organisation, has "confined" himself to his house. "He has been sick for quite some time and needs rest. That's why we are not putting pressure on him for campaigning," Barman said.         

Though LF activists blame Opposition for blocking development in the rural areas to tarnish the image of the LF government, TC activists claim they had brought transparency and developed irrigation in the area so that farmers could reap a good harvest during summer paddy cultivation.        

Kazi Rehman, a villager, said the newly-elected panchayats under Trinamool Congress were more transparent in implementing different development programmes.        

LF leaders also blame TC as the 100 days' work programme under NREGA had allegedly not taken off and there were grievances regarding distribution of old age pension.