With 300-plus panchayat seats as per latest count, ISF marks arrival across Bengal dists

It was the first time that the ISF, which came up before the 2021 Assembly elections in West Bengal, contested panchayat polls in the state. In the Assembly polls, the ISF had won 1 seat, performing better than its well-established allies Left Front and Congress, which did not win any.

In Bhangar, South 24 Parganas, one of the epicentres of violence during the panchayat polls, especially between the ISF and the ruling Trinamool Congress, the ISF has picked up 43 gram panchayat seats so far. Its alliance partners, the CPI(M) and Jomi Jibika Bastutantra O Poribesh Rokkha Committee, have won another 25 – giving the tie-up a five-seat edge over the TMC’s 63 seats so far.

Besides, the ISF has picked up five panchayat samiti seats in Bhangar, and its sole zilla parishad win here.

It was in Bhangar too that the ISF had registered its sole Assembly win, marking it out as a challenger to the TMC’s minority vote bank.

In the South 24 Parganas district altogether, where Muslims number more than 30% of the population, the ISF has won so far 120 gram panchayat seats and 8 panchayat samiti seats, apart from the zilla parishad seat.

In North 24 Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly and East Midnapore districts as well, the ISF’s performance has been impressive. In North 24 Parganas, it has won 108 gram panchayat seats and 1 panchayat samiti, an unexpected result showing that the ISF may now have a strong footing in the largely Bengali-speaking Muslim areas of the state as well, apart from Urdu-speaking areas.

In Howrah, the ISF won 34 seats, and in Hooghly and East Midnapore, 13 each. The ISF has also got 5 seats in Nadia, 4 seats in Murshidabad, 2 seats in Bankura and 1 seat in Birbhum.

In North Bengal, the only district where the ISF registered a presence is Malda, where it has won 25 gram panchayat seats so far.

The ISF, formed by the cleric of the noted Furfura Sharif shrine, Peerzada Abbas Siddiqui, described its main agenda as giving social justice to the Muslims and Dalits of Bengal.

The results will be particularly worrying for the TMC when it comes to Bhangar, with its predominantly Muslim population, located just 20 km from the Kolkata suburbs of New Town and Rajarhat.

Bhangar was won for the first time by the TMC in 2006, by its candidate Arabul Islam. The party lost the seat in 2011, even as it swept the rest of the state, but managed to regain it in 2016 when Abdur Razzak Mollah, the Land Reforms Minister in the earlier Left Front government, won. However, the TMC dropped the 75-year-old in 2021, and opted to field Dr Rezaul Karim, also a former CPI(M) leader. The fact that it again overlooked Islam sparked a fight within the party, with Karim eventually losing the seat to Naushad Siddiqui of the ISF.

Last January, the battle between the TMC and ISF spilled over to the streets of Kolkata, with Siddiqui and 17 of his supporters arrested. The Bhangar MLA spent 42 days in jail.

The panchayat election in Bhangar was marked by violence from the start, with the ISF and its ally CPI(M) alleging their candidates were stopped from filing nominations by the TMC. The ISF eventually could not file a single nomination in Bhangar-I block, but put up candidates in 132 seats out of 218 in Bhangar-II.

Naushad Siddiqui said that if the TMC had not created “terror”, the ISF would have won a majority in both Bhangar I and II blocks.

ISF leader Tapash Chakraborty said the results were remarkable, given that this was the party’s first panchayat election. “Even after huge violence, we have won more than 300 seats, showing our experiment was successful. We planned to file nominations in 3,000 seats, but were able to file in only around 1,000 and won 336 seats. We are studying the results and we will accordingly plan the expansion of our organisation.”

A senior TMC leader admitted they were concerned. “Naushad Siddiqui has become a figure in West Bengal politics now, with the ISF spreading its presence outside South 24 Parganas… We are hopeful that the panchayat election results are localised and hence won’t impact the Lok Sabha polls. But, if that does not hold true, the ISF will be a major headache for us,” the leader said.

Other than the ISF, the only small and unrecognised party which did well is the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM), led by Anit Thapa, which picked up seats in Darjeeling and Kalimpong district. The BGPM had earlier got a majority in the Gorkha Territorial Administration.