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Communal polarisation casts shadow on Malda election scene

MALDA: BJP candidates in both Malda constituencies—Malda North and Malda South—have emerged a serious contenders in the electoral race, courtesy the communal polarisation of voters in the district where Muslims have a strong presence.

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Shubhadeep Choudhury                                                                              
Tribune News Service
Malda, April 19

Alampur, a village in Malda district of West Bengal, has acquired a new name.

“It is called Shivajinagar now," say a group of youths standing by the roadside. The youths, voters of the Malda North constituency, univocally express their support for the BJP.

Sitting MP Mausam Noor has helped set up a water tank in the area despite the fact that people living here are not her voters.

“There are times when other considerations take over and even development works fail to make an impression,” says a youth who introduces himself as Pradeep Sarkar philosophically.

BJP candidates in both Malda constituencies—Malda North and Malda South—have emerged a serious contenders in the electoral race, courtesy the communal polarisation of voters in the district where Muslims have a strong presence.

While the district was considered a pocket borough of former union railway minister ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury, who was loved and respected by Hindus and Muslims alike, a lot has changed since his death in 2006. 

“Mamata Banerjee and Narendra Modi are responsible for the communal division among voters,” says taxi driver Sankar Roy.

In the Muslim inhabited locality of Kaliachak, which falls in Malda South constituency, there is no sign of any presence of the BJP. “BJP will not get any vote this side,” says HM Rasheed, an English teacher in the local higher secondary school.

Rasheed and his friends, who had assembled in a roadside tea stall for evening tea and gossip, said they would like TMC nominee Muazzim Hussain to win from the seat. Congress nominee Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury (brother of ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury), who is trying for his fourth straight win from the constituency, has done nothing for us, says Rasheed’s businessman friend Noorul Haq.

Muslim labourers hailing from Jalalpur village in the neighbourhood have returned home from Rajasthan, where they work, to cast their votes. They expressed support for the Congress candidate.

At Hayat Bhawan, the Congress party office, workers admit that Modi was popular with a large section of voters.

“It’s like, if you are Ali (Muslim), then I am Bajrangbali. This is very unfortunate,” says a middle-aged man sitting beside DCC general secretary Rabiul Islam.

BJP candidate from Malda South constituency is Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury. Wife of a senior bureaucrat, Chaudhury is known as “Nirbhaya Didi” because of her work on empowerment ordinary people in the area. Refusing to attach much importance to Malda’s reputation as a “Congress party bastion”, Chaudhury said that a “formidable candidate” could defeat congress candidate Abu Hasem Khan Chaudhury, who was “facing strong anti-incumbency”.

BJP’s Malda North candidate Khagen Murmu was a CPI (M) MLA before he joined BJP. His chief rival TMC candidate Mausam Noor, too, is a deserter like him as she won two previous elections from the constituency on Congress ticket. 

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