In Two Bengal Seats, a Familiar Picture of Corruption and Inequality

Kolkata: Two constituencies in and around Bengal’s capital city of Kolkata are noteworthy in their similarity as campaigns in both highlight the role of corruption in today’s state politics. While South Kolkata was once considered the compass of the state’s political direction, Dum Dum is noteworthy because of the BJP’s attention to it.

Dum Dum

The Dum Dum Lok Sabha constituency is one which houses Kolkata’s international airport, shining new buildings and vast settlements of the poorer middle-class.

The constituency is known for electing Bengal’s first BJP MP, Tapan Sikdar, in 1998 and also, 1999. In the latter, he won 51.59% of the votes. With a vast non-Bengali population, this area is perpetually on the radar of the BJP, which has brought up the Ram temple here in campaigns, often.

The BJP’s candidate is Shilbhadra Dutta, a former TMC man. While Modi has done a roadshow to campaign for him, BJP’s ground presence is low.

TMC’s Sougata Roy has been the MP from here since 2009. This time too the 77-year-old candidate is active in campaigns. “I am active in the parliament and off it. People here are my family,” he told The Wire.

But Roy is in some trouble. His trusted election and campaign manager, TMC’s Jyotipriya Mallick is now in jail in connection with the public distribution system scam. Another one of his trusted lieutenants, Bratya Basu, has faced allegations of involvement in the school teacher jobs scam.

Not everyone is happy with the candidate either. Rajesh Gupta, a BJP worker at Khardah said, “While this is true, we can’t make life easier for CPI(M), so we are campaigning in Dum Dum.”

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For middle class families in Dum Dum, outbound migration is a common picture. The place was once a hub for medium industries, but locked factories reveal a picture of unemployment. Areas like Kamarhati which grew to house factory workers are now hotbeds of anger. Some blame workers’ unions from CPI(M)’s time in power in the state. Others ask why TMC’s rule brought no changes.

Meanwhile, TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee has tried to appeal to the Matua population in Dum Dum by saying that the Citizenship Amendment Act has his support, despite the fact that in other constituencies, TMC vehemently opposes the Act.

CPI(M)’s candidate is Dr Sujan Chakrabarty, a former MP and popular face. Chakrabarty has promised that closed factories will reopen.

South Kolkata

Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s favourite colours are white and blue. Since 2011, this has been a fact many have believe true, simply because all government buildings since then have been painted and re-painted in those two colours.

The coats of paint are but a layer on the level of corruption surrounding construction in the South Kolkata Lok Sabha constituency. Bridges have fallen, under-construction flyovers have collapsed and many of the councillors in the Trinamool Congress-led Kolkata Municipal Corporation have been caught in corruption allegations. On March 18, at Garden Reach, an under-construction building collapsed, killing 12 people.

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In the last one and half months, the government has received over 600 reports of illegal construction, leading even the Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim to admit wrongdoing seeing that it is not quite possible to start constructions without a councillor’s green light. Political circles are rife with discussions on how councillors are powerful in South Kolkata – some riding visibly expensive cars.

Like Jadavpur, the picture of contrast is evident in South Kolkata too. But voters complain that the concerns of the poor are ignored.

In 1952, Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee had been elected from this constituency. In 1967, it was freedom fighter and communist leader Ganesh Ghosh. From 1991 to 2011, Mamata Banerjee had been this constituency’s elected MP, from Congress and then from TMC. TMC has never lost from this constituency.

This time its candidate is MP Mala Roy. “This is Mamata Banerjee’s constituency. People here won’t consider another party. There are problems, it’s true, but they will be solved,” she told The Wire.

The BJP’s candidate is Debashree Chaudhuri who had been the Raiganj MP until now. Chaudhuri was Minister of State for Woman and Child Development from 2019 to 2021. This time, BJP leaders in Raiganj had protested against her, forcing the party to move Chaudhuri to Kolkata.  Chaudhuri told The Wire she was confident of victory.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has nominated Saira Shah Halim. Halim is a comparative newcomer. Her husband Fuad is a noted doctor, her uncle is actor Naseeruddin Shah and her late father-in-law was the Bengal assembly’s speaker, Hashim Abdul Halim.

“People have broken the binary that Bengal politics came to be known for. We have been taking up relevant issues, like the Left does, without fear of loss of votes,” Halim, whose campaigns have drawn top CPI(M) leaders, told The Wire.

Translated from the Bengali original by Soumashree Sarkar.