Kharagpur key in hands of Telugu Robin Hood facing 10 murder cases

KHARAGPUR: As the poll season looms over West Bengal, a peculiar political sub-plot is unfolding in the industrial town of Kharagpur, nearly 140 km from Kolkata.

A “non-political” man from a non-Bengali, non-Muslim and non-backward caste community is set to decide who wins here, say experts. And, keeping all parties on tenterhooks, A Sriniwas Rao Naidu is yet to pick his favourite candidate.

Telugu-speaking people form a majority of the town’s 2.9-lakh population and Naidu is their man.

“I am yet to make up my mind on whether or not to support anyone,” he tells TOI. “Chacha (Gyan Singh Sohanpal) came to me before the 2011 polls. He sought my support. He won then because Trinamool and Congress were together. Now, things are different. When CPM was in power, they sent me to jail. Now Trinamool does that too....”

Srinu has produced a Tollywood fl ick, gifted his neighbourhood an ambulance, a pay-loader and a tractor, along with a 1,000 litre water tanker. He is also mired in 40-45 criminal cases. Ten of them involve murder. “Whenever anything happens in Kharagpur, I am slapped with a criminal case,” he explains.

The rise of Naidu, who is only in his 20s, has been meteoric. It started with him challenging Forward Bloc strongman Basab Rambabu, who, due to a changed political regime and a host of legal issues, has aligned with the ruling Trinamool.

Prior to the Kharagpur municipality poll in April 2014, Srinu’s wife Pooja contested on a BJP ticket and won. So did six other BJP councillors, queering the pitch for TMC. Pooja defected to Trinamool after a month. Srinu walked out a free man from a Midnapore prison days later.

In 2016, Srinu sits in a TMC party offi ce (actually his wife’s, he explains) with a new Audi parked outside. Well-built, with tattoos on his arms, sporting gold earrings, he is guarded by eight young men.

The vice-president of an INTTUC-affi liated labour cell (which TMC says has now been disbanded), he is also a railway employee posted in the mechanical department.

“I want public amenities for people. Take a look around here. This is railway land, but it does nothing. Neither does the municipality,” he says.

“I plough back whatever I earn from the car-rental and land businesses here. I now want to build a public park. This is what the politicians should be doing. People love me and it is my task to look after them,” he adds.