TMC on a strong wicket in Nandigram

NANDIGRAM: Nandigram, the centre of resistance to the Left Front government's land acquisition programme, is geared up for the May 5 Assembly polls in which TMC's Suvendu Adhikari is pitted against CPI-M's Abdul Kabir Sheikh, who will act as a joint Congress-Left alliance candidate.
Nandigram in East Midnapore district, about 125 km from Kolkata, was known as a stronghold of the communists from where CPI candidates always emerged victorious, except for the 1996 and 2011 Assembly polls.
However, the agitation led by Mamata Banerjee against the previous Left Front (LF) government's forcible land acquisition, changed the political equation in the area. This time too, the TMC candidate has an edge over the Opposition nominee.
The LF government had planned to acquire 10,000 acres of land for a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to be developed by an Indonesia-based company, Salim Group, for industrialisation.
The fierce resistance movement against forcible land acquisition had led to police firing in which 14 people had lost their lives in 2007.
BJP's Bijan Kumar Das, besides SUCI(C) and Bharat Nirman Party candidates, are also in the fray from this constituency, which has 2,30,541 voters, including a sizable chunk of Muslims.
Riding on the anti-land acquisition movement, the TMC had not only won the Assembly by-poll in Nandigram but also swept the panchayat polls in East Midnapore district.
It won all 16 seats in East Midnapore district in the 2011 Assembly polls, which paved the way for the ouster of the Left regime.
Both Nandigram and East Midnapore district as a whole turned into a TMC bastion with the party sweeping the 2013 Panchayat polls and the Lok Sabha polls the following year.