Jangipur Bye-Election:: 18 Booths that Changed the Result!

ONLY 18 polling booths saved Congress candidate Abhijit Mukherjee to scrape through with a wafer-thin margin in Jangipur Lok Sabha bye-election in West Bengal. And, the results in these booths showed a unique feature, defying all logic and in total discrepancy with the overall pattern.

In Jangipur, Congress candidate defeated CPI(M) candidate Muzaffar Hossain by a margin of only 2536 votes. Congress candidate got 3,32,999 votes while CPI(M) candidate got 3,30,383 votes. The seat fell vacant after Pranab Mukherjee was elected President of India. In 2009, the senior Congress leader had won the seat with a margin of nearly 1,30,000 votes. The vote share of Congress came down from 54 per cent in 2009 to 39.01 per cent in 2012, a drop of nearly 15 per cent. CPI(M)’s vote share in this year’s election was 38.71 per cent. In other words, the President’s son Abhijit Mukherjee won the seat by a margin of only 0.30 per cent votes.

Another notable feature of the election was that BJP got more than 85,000 votes while two other parties, SDPI (24,691) and WPI (41,620) polled considerable votes. Though the elections took place after Trinamool Congress split from UPA at the centre and after Congress walked out of the state cabinet, the TMC decided not to contest. The formal explanation was ‘courtesy’ shown by Mamata Banerjee to Pranab Mukherjee. In the absence of TMC, the extraordinary rise of votes for BJP and other two political formations has attracted some attention in political quarters.

CPI(M) has taken a lead in four assembly constituencies while Congress in three. In 2011, Left Front won only one out of these seven assembly segments. 

All trends, however, took a U-turn in 18 polling booths in the two village panchayats of Giria Sekendra area under Raghunathganj assembly segments. This area has witnessed severe terror for last few months and most of CPI(M) activists had to flee. Left Front candidate could not enter this area during the campaign. In these booths, CPI(M) agents were not allowed to be present. Congress hoodlums captured the booths and freely voted for hours. The villagers were forced to remain outside the booths. The booth capturing was even recorded in TV footage.  Despite repeated requests, police came and stayed just for few minutes. It did not intervene effectively. The CPI(M) candidate had alerted the Election Commission much before about the possibility of booth capturing. But the state election office failed to ensure free and fair voting in these disturbed areas. The result showed that in these booths Congress candidate ‘polled’ 600 to 700 votes while CPI(M) got just 6 to 20 votes. In one such booth (in Patlatola Primary School, Booth no: 23) Congress candidate has got 679 votes out of total 685, while CPI(M) candidate has not got any vote at all. The dreaded criminals from Jharkhand were brought to terrorise the entire area. Congress candidate took a lead of more than 7000 votes from these 18 booths and thus saved the ‘prestige’ of himself and his father on whose name he fought the elections.

CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat termed the result of Jangipur as ‘technical victory’ of Congress. Biman Basu, Left Front chairman pointed towards drastic reduction of votes of Congress. It was because of the anti-people policies of the centre and non implementation of promises, he asserted. CPI(M) Murshidabad district secretary Mriganka Bhattacharya rightly concluded that although the result was formally clinched in favour of Congress through manipulations and terror in the 18 booths, they were morally defeated.

Voting Pattern in 18 Booths

Booth No.	Name of the booth	Polled vote	Abhijit Mukherjee	Muzaffar Hossain	Sudhangsu Biswas
17	Labanchoya Primary Schl. (Room-1)	346	316	11	14
18	Chandpur Primary Schl. (Room-1)	591	536	10	2
19	Labanchoya Co-operative Society	350	268	46	12
20	Momintola Primary Schl.	626	586	16	5
21	Momintola Madrasha	526	481	17	1
22	Sonarpara Primary Schl.	675	606	31	4
23	Patlatola Primary Schl.	685	679	0	0
24	Bhairabtola Primary Schl.	514	216	75	177
25	Bhairabtola Health centre	479	426	27	0
26	Bhairabtola paschim Primary Schl.	521	398	72	0
27	Lalkhandiyar R C H Bhaban	512	489	15	4
28	Sekendra G P Bhaban (Room-1)	614	533	49	6
33	Giriya Kishmat Primary Schl. (Room-1)	502	435	43	1
33A	Giriya Kishmat Primary Schl. (Room-2)	354	294	94	0
36	Imamnagar Primary School (Room-1)	296	207	65	4
36A	Imamnagar Primary School (Room-2)	538	459	70	1
37	Khejutola Primary School	495	429	35	2
40	Rameswarpur Primary School	628	462	112	8
	Total	9252	7820	788	241

Mamata actually anti-Left and anti-democracy : Mishra

Frontline, Volume 29 - Issue 20 :: Oct. 06-19, 2012

Live Bites - Surjya Kanta Mishra, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member said: The stand we have taken on the reform agenda that is being pushed in such a hurry by the Centre is an uncompromising stand and should not be considered in terms of an increase or decrease in the percentage of votes. Ours is a principled stand and is distinctly different from what Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has taken. Her tactics are simply to occupy the Left’s space.

She does not address the root of the problems relating to the neoliberal policies of the Centre. I had joked earlier that instead of the slogan “Maa Mati Manush” [which she raised when she campaigned for the Assembly elections], Mamata is talking more about American President Barack Obama—even about inviting him to the celebration of the 150th birth anniversary of Vivekananda. Then there have been visits by Nancy Powell [U.S. Ambassador to India] and Hillary Clinton [U.S. Secretary of State], who came and had one-to-one talks with the Chief Minister. Can she not see the forces of imperialism working here? How the ruling class is succumbing to the pressures created by them? All that the Chief Minister was doing at the Centre was bargaining for some package or advantage, even during the presidential election.

Her apparent Left-like stand is actually anti-Left and anti-democracy. You can see that in the way she has attacked the trade unions, the way she has handled the all-India strikes, and the way she refused to accept the peasant suicides and the plight of workers, and the manner in which she has reversed the process of democratic decentralisation and land reforms. It reminds me of the trade unions that Mussolini led and the interpretation of socialism by the Nazis.’

Massive Rally Gives Warning to TMC Govt

NORTH 24 PARGANAS PEOPLE RAISE THE BANNER OF PROTEST

KOLKATA, 1^ST OCTOBER: Kolkata witnessed another mammoth rally on October 1, signaling growing discontent and mounting protest against the Trinamool Congress-led state government. The rally, called by CPI(M) North 24 Parganas district committee, saw tens of thousands of people from all corners of the district converging in Rani Rashmoni road, inundating the heart of the city with streams of people. The central slogan of the rally was “Stop terror, Run the state”. The rally was preceded by month long intensive campaign throughout the district highlighting the demands of the people as well as protesting the neo-liberal attack on toiling masses.

Right from the morning thousands of people began to assemble in Kolkata. Some people came from distant areas of Sundarbans after hours of journey. A special train from Bangaon in Bangladesh border arrived with full of people. Hundreds of people came from Haroa and adjoining areas which are terror-stricken. Students and youth were visibly enthusiastic while participating in their processions. Industrial workers, including jute workers, came from famed and now distressed Barrackpore industrial area. Surprisingly, IT employees from Salt Lake were also present in good numbers. On top of these, a colourful procession of around 50,000 people marched from Sealdah station to the venue of the public meeting.

Addressing the gathering, Biman Basu, state secretary of CPI(M), said that the crisis-ridden USA was trying to shift its economic burden on to the Indian people. They are forcing the Indian government to orient its policies to suit their interests. The UPA government is surrendering to these pressures and heaping intolerable burden on the common man. Trinamool Congress remained silent when they were inside the ruling coalition. Even now, while they are opposing FDI in retail, they are silent on the role of the US. The pseudo-Left posture of Trinamool Congress is a part of wider design, he said.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Polit Bureau member of CPI(M), said criminals and anti-socials have started to think that the current state government is their own government. The irresponsible comments from the highest executive head of the state has repeatedly encouraged criminal activities like murder, extortion, intimidation, rape and other forms of crime against women.

Bhattacharjee vehemently attacked the industrial policy of the state government. Drawing the example of Singur, Bhattacharya said that Trinamool Congress is still moving on the same path because of which no investment is coming to the state and no employment has also been created in the last one and half years. He attacked the government on the issue of reservations to minority communities. He said that the present government has completely rejected the process of reservations to minorities in jobs initiated by the earlier Left Front government of the state. Raising the issue of farmer suicides, Bhattacharjee said the current government has utterly failed to provide remunerative prices to the farmers.

Both Basu and Bhattacharjee criticised the way the panchayats are being attacked in the state. They strongly expressed the determination of the Left to not concede even an inch without resistance in the coming panchayat elections despite being under severe attack.

Surya Kanta Mishra, leader of opposition in the West Bengal state assembly, said that the government brought a resolution against FDI in the assembly, which was not opposed by the Left Front. But the Left Front wanted to introduce a small amendment to the resolution by incorporating the word ‘neo-liberalism’ and ‘imperialism’, which was not accepted by the government. He raised a question on the credibility of TMC’s role on the FDI issue. Dr Mishra also said that the Party is ready to face panchayet elections at any point of time.

Gautam Deb, North 24 Parganas district secretary of CPI(M), said that this rally was not called to oust the state government. It is a warning to the government. The Left Front has showed extreme restraint for the last sixteen months. But if the state government does not mend its ways, they must be prepared to face huge mass resistance.

Though it was a rally called by CPI(M), Left Front leaders were present on the occasion and addressed the rally. Veteran Forward Block leader Ashok Ghosh saw in the rally signs of rejuvenation of the Left in the state. Manjukumar Majumdar, state secretary of CPI, urged for bigger struggles. Khiti Goswami, state secretary of RSP, also addressed the gathering. Amitav Nandy and Tarit Topdar explained the demands of the district. The meeting was presided over by Md Amin, veteran trade union leader.

A charter of demands was also submitted on behalf of the Left Front North 24 Parganas on various demands of the district to the industry minister Partha Chatterjee.

One of the most touching part of the rally was the solidarity with the families of the martyrs. CPI(M) North 24 Parganas district committee reached to 30 lakh people to raise money to help these families. Families of 50 martyrs were given Rs 1 lakh each. The family members of the martyrs were showered with respect from the entire gathering.