Howrah bypoll a litmus test for Didi

HOWRAH: Poribartan is past. Post-poribartan Bengal has thrown up a new poll arithmetic where Trinamool Congress is in the ruling, and its once ally Congress crossing swords with it along with CPM. Mamata is actually fighting a four-pronged battle in Howrah against Congress, CPM and some of her own men working at cross purposes.
The time is also crucial for Mamata. Howrah is going to be the litmus test for her much-touted government's performance, her tackling the Ponzi muddle when the urban population didn't take them well.A win in this old Congress area will give the Trinamool Congress a huge boost in the panchayat polls and pave the way for Mamata's playing a larger role at the national plane after the Lok Sabha polls. Her losing the seat or just scraping through can be equally bad for her. The opposition, particularly the Congress, won't let her breathe easy. Mamata is aware of it. She has addressed four public meetings in the Howrah parliamentary constituency for a bypoll and participated in a road show from Pilkhana to Dumurjala in central Howrah.
But why should the Trinamool bother about the margin when Trinamool and Congress combined decimated CPM in 2011 by a huge margin of 1.84 lakh votes? How much of it can Congress take away when it doesn't have a proper election machinery for the last four years since 2009? Will the CPM be able to retain the vote it got in 2011?
The questions bother political pundits while citizens like Mithun Chatterjee from Kadamtala are bothered with the work of the East-West Metro that has come to a stop at Howrah Maidan. What remains is the extortion of local traders and contractors by Trinamool dadas, hard to wash off. Yet, Chatterjee places the Trinamool at an advantage though with a reduced margin.
Some didn't rule out Howrah's taking the Nalhati route where Forward Bloc scraped through due to the bitter fighting between Congress and Trinamool in the Assembly bypolls. But then, Trinamool also has the example of Malda's Englishbazar ready where it defeated the Congress in its own turf. Trinamool's bonus in Howrah could be the BJP's vote bank, even as some independents - Ranjan Paul, Gobardhan Manna, and Sudarshan Manna - aiming at chunks of it at local levels. The CPM, on the other hand is lying low, trying to retain its support base though the post-poribartan bypolls reveal that it has not been able to check the slide.
The Congress has made its presence felt in the entire constituency. Right from the Unsani village, close to Andul Rajbari grounds in the Sankrail constituency, where Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Mamata Banerjee held meetings to the Sankkhali village in Panchla, hand embossed flags fluttered on the way, with Congress banners more in number than that of CPM in the erstwhile Left bastions of Bally, Liluah, not to mention about places like Kadamtala in central Howrah or Sibpur. A section of former Trinamool MP Ambica Banerjee's men has sided with the Congress to avenge the insult Banerjee faced from the Trinamool at the fag end of his life.
However, more important is the simmering anti-incumbency in urban Howrah and also in pockets of rural Howrah - Panchla and Sankrail. Mamata's promise for a zari hub is hardly a consolation for zari workers spread across Mirbazar, Sankkhali, Dhamsiya villages in the Panchla constituency.
"Things have turned for the worse these days. Most of the days go without work. Input costs are on the rise, though our wages are falling. Nowadays we get Rs 100-120 for a six to eight hour hard work. That is for three months in a year before the pujas and Eid beginning August. Didi has announced a zari hub, but that is yet to come up," said Sk Sadiq Ali, a zari worker. His friend Amin told about many of his friends going to far off places such as Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan where wages are higher. The dejection was writ large on her face when Jahanara Mullick complained that the Trinamool-run panchayat didn't even sanction a tubewell for the village. "We have raised money to sink a tubewell on our own. My husband has a job card since 2008 but hasn't got a day's work till date," Jahanara said.
Van-rickshaw operators in the villages are up in arms against the Trinamool government. Even transport operators complain about the extortion and harassment by police and local dadas that have increased manifold. Retired primary teacher Rajab Ali Purkait would, however, give the Trinamool some more time. "There is grievance, but we should at least give five years to didi before we vote for a change," the retired teacher said.
The mood is similar among the small machine shops lined up at Dasnagar or Liluah. Mantu Shah works on his lathe making aluminium pots from sheets. "I used to make 600 to 700 karais a day, fit them with handles. The number has gone down to 400 pots a day," Shah said. The cottage shops depending on orders from engineering industries are the worst hit. "We have little work to eke out a living," said Dineswar Prasad who has been at it for the last 30 years.
But it does not match with the views of high-rise residents lined up at Golabari. "There was a time when CPM goons would lock our apartments from outside on the day of polls. We are not going to bring back those days. We have problems, and some of us may vote for the Congress," said a high-rise resident. Even those who supported CPM in 2011, are not very happy with the party's campaign. "CPM activists are not very active this time. I don't know if it can do better," Manoranjan Pal, a schoolteacher from Bataitala in Sibpur said.
With both Trinamool and CPM's vote share likely to slide, the Congress holds the key. It has set a target of garnering 1.5 lakh votes that comes down to getting 80 votes in each of the 1840 booths - a figure that can put the Trinamool in danger.