Silent fears lurk behind Front's cakewalk show

PURSURAH, Hooghly: For most of the people in Arambagh sub-division in the Hooghly district, there was no panchayat poll on Sunday. The reason? The Opposition did not field candidates in 894 of the 992 gram panchayat seats. The Pursurah block was the lone exception. Even here, the Left Front had won 53 of the 151 seats uncontested.
This came in handy for the CPM which herded its caders in the entire sub-division to Pursurah.
That the Opposition parties were in the grip of a silent terror was evident in the way voting was being held, as a TNN team visited several villages — Srirampur, Balarampur, Chingakhali, Harua, Mirzapur, Harihar, Baikunthapur — in the hope of witnessing a fair contest. Unfortunately, that was few and far between.
Most of the polling booths did not have any representation from the opposition camps. In Balarampur primary school, a woman was found voting for herself and her mother. At the same place, a minor girl was waiting for her turn. When she was asked her age, she smiled meekly and turned the other way. The ruling party tried its best to play down the absence of the Opposition at these places. At Harua Primary School, for example, the CPM even sought to prove that their own polling agent was from the Trinamul Congress.
"Why don''t you tell them that you are from the Trinamul," thundered a CPM volunteer at the agent. The agent, who did not notice the TNN team coming in, took a while to realise that he was the one being addressed. "Oh-ah, yes," he blurted out, and sank back to his polling list.
The CPM poll machinery was functioning in full steam. At the Pursurah zonal party office, minister of state for library services Nimai Mal was personally supervising operations.
Several motorcycles were parked outside the office, with cadres ready to take off as soon as the green signal was given. It was plain that the CPM had mustered supports from outside the area. At Baikunthapur, CPM strongman from Goghat Mohammed Yasin was seen monitoring movements. "Since there are no elections in our area, I have been staying here since last Sunday to ensure that the elections are properly held," Yasin said.
The Pursurah block Trinamul office was also deserted. "CPM men are entering Pursurah from Digrihat and Balipur and threatening our men," Trinamul leader Samir Bhandari said.