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As West Bengal is swept up in panchayat poll violence, Bhangar in South 24 Parganas has emerged as one of the main battlegrounds. On Thursday, the last date of filing of nominations – which was not extended despite a high court suggestion – there was fresh violence, with two people killed and several injured.
The clashes in Bhangar involve the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Indian Secular Front (ISF), the fledgling Muslim outfit formed ahead of the 2021 Assembly polls. The ISF had won one seat in the elections, at a time when its bigger partners the Left and Congress failed to win any. That seat was Bhangar – making the ISF a thorn in the TMC’s side since.
After its Assembly poll debut, this is the first time the ISF is contesting an election in Bengal. As per the outfit, founded by the revered Peerzada of Furfura Sharif, Abbas Siddiqui, the violence has resulted from TMC cadres blocking its candidates from filing nominations for the polls.
With its predominantly Muslim population, Bhangar — located about 20 km from Kolkata’s suburbs — remains a coveted seat for the TMC.
In 2006, five years before it came to power in West Bengal, and at a time when it was still fighting Left dominance in the state, Bhangar was one of the seats won by the TMC. Its candidate was Arabul Islam.
But in 2011, even as the TMC swept to power, it lost in Bhangar. In 2016, with Abdur Razzak Mollah, the Land Reforms Minister in the Left Front government, as its candidate, the TMC gained the seat back.
Then came 2021, when the TMC dropped the 75-year-old Mollah and fielded Rezaul Karim, also a former CPI(M) leader. Islam, who coveted the ticket, rebelled openly, and in the elections that followed, Karim lost to the ISF’s Naushad Siddiqui, the brother of the Furfura Sharif Peerzada.
Apart from the TMC infighting, the ISF was seen as having benefited from protests in the area against land acquisition for a power grid project, which had seen deaths of two in alleged police firing.
While that anger persists, since 2021, the TMC has also been trying to regain lost ground in Bhangar, and its workers and those of the ISF have often clashed.
A senior TMC leader said, “Those who fought against the land acquisition are now with the ISF. Almost all the CPI(M) members are also with the ISF. So, the ISF has a strong grip on Bhangar.”
A victory in Bhangar is also crucial for the TMC at a time when the Muslim vote is seen as slipping away from the party. The TMC government’s actions, such as holding ISF MLA Naushad Siddiqui in prison for 42 days over a violent protest in Kolkata, have not gone down well with the community.
Early this year, in what the TMC feared was a reflection of that anger, the party lost one of its Muslim-dominated strongholds in Murshidabad in a bypoll. (The Congress MLA has since joined the TMC).
The TMC leader admitted the anxiety. “One after another, there are corruption charges against us and the Muslim vote bank is in a dilemma… If the Muslim vote slips towards the ISF and the third front (Left and Congress), the TMC will face a tough contest in the panchayat polls.”
The TMC’s hope is that local issues will dominate the panchayat election campaign, and that the BJP will not be able to sway the results via deployment of big-ticket leaders.
Locals accuse TMC leader Arabul Islam of being behind the violence against the ISF in Bhangar. While his relationship with the party high command remains combative, the TMC depends on Islam in the area. An example of this is that while Islam was suspended by the TMC for six years in October 2014 in connection with a murder, he was brought back two years later, with an eye on the 2021 Assembly polls.
During the last panchayat polls too, in 2018, Islam had been accused of violence. He was arrested after suspected TMC workers shot dead a man at a rally of Independent candidate Ishrafiq Mollah. Islam, then the Bhangar II Panchayat Samiti chairman, was up against Mollah in the polls.
The last big clash between the TMC and ISF also involved Islam, and the control of gram panchayats in Bhangar. On January 21, an ISF protest alleging attack on its workers by Islam turned violent, and after clashes slipped over onto the streets of Kolkata, the ISF’s Naushad Siddiqui was arrested along with 17 of his supporters.
A senior TMC leader said, “The headache for the party is not just Bhangar but also that the ISF might spread its organisation to adjacent areas like Shason, Canning. We need to take back control of the area.”
On Wednesday, Naushad Siddiqui tried to meet Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee to complain about the violence, and said she had refused to meet him.
“Arabul Islam, Saokat mollah and TMC miscreants have spread terror all over the Bhangar. They attack our supporters with firearms. I personally went to meet the CM… I appeal to the State Election Commission too to give our candidates security,” he said.
Mamata has denied allegations against the TMC of using violence to stop the Opposition from filing nominations. In 2018, 34% of the panchayat seats were won unopposed by the TMC after Opposition candidates were similarly stopped.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the TMC supremo said that violence during panchayat polls was not new. Raising the killing of 36 people under the Left regime in 2003, she said, “Rural polls are so localised that even three-four members from the same family are contesting elections… Opposition parties are trying to create disturbance by orchestrating violence while filing nominations. They are doing it to tarnish the state’s image.”
Mamata specifically referred to the Bhangar violence as well, accusing the Opposition of indulging in vandalism and of trying to incite people by raising communal slogans.
Compared to other states, the CM said, West Bengal was peaceful. “We have seen incidents in Uttar Pradesh and Tripura where the Opposition was not even allowed to contest the elections. In Tripura, 90% of the seats were won uncontested. This is not the case with Bengal.”
