Elections 2019: Slogans Say ‘Phir Se Salim’ in Raiganj’s Multi-Cornered Contest

Kolkata: Subrata Chakraborty, a resident of Raiganj, West Bengal, asked his family’s domestic help a few days ago, who she was going to vote for in the general elections. She said, BJP. When asked why she would not vote for CPI(M) candidate Mohammed Salim, she replied, he is not fighting the election this time, is he?

Left Front candidates see this as part of the rivals’ rumour mill working overtime as campaign picks up for the Lok Sabha elections.

However, Anjura Begum, Krishna Burman, Saidul Mohammed, all residents of Raiganj, when asked, said they would vote for Salim, as “he has shown us what a Member of Parliament should truly be like.”

In the upcoming 17th Lok Sabha elections, Raiganj is one of the seats where there is will be a strong fight from all the parties. The constituency in West Bengal’s Uttar Dinajpur district consists of seven Assembly constituencies — Islampur, Goalpokhar, Chakulia, Karandighi, Hemtabad, Kaliaganj and Raiganj.

In the previous Lok Sabha elections, Salim the Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate, defeated his closest opponent, Deepa Dasmunsi of Congress, by 1,634 votes. Salim got 29% votes while Dasmunsi got 28.50% votes. The CPI(M)’s vote share fell by 9.93% and Congress’ by 21.79%.

“There will be a very close fight this year,” says Subal, a resident of Nurpur, a remote village. He alleged that the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) had “bought” Congress candidates. “During panchayat elections, false votes were cast by TMC. We were not allowed to vote. When we protested, false cases were filed against us. There are five false cases against me. Just today, I got bail in one case. Two cases are still remaining”, he adds.

In 2016 Assembly elections, the Left Front and Congress alliance got five out of the seven seats, while the other two Assembly seats went to TMC. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to win any of these seats.

In 2016, Kanhaiya Lal Aggarwal of the Congres-CPI(M) alliance won the Islampur Assembly seat. However, in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Aggarwal is TMC’s candidate in Raiganj constituency, who is pitted against Salim and Dasmunsi of the CPI(M) and Congress, respectively. The BJP’s candidate is Deboshree Chowdhury, who fought the 16th Lok Sabha elections from Bardhaman Durgapur constituency, and lost. This has angered BJP supporters, as they do not want an ‘outsider’ to represent Raiganj. As a result, there is no visible campaign for Chowdhury in the area.

Support for Salim, a sitting MP, is quite visible in the area. In last five years, locals across caste and religion cite instances when he helped people, especially in the flood-effected areas. Some locals are already raising slogans, like “Phir se Salim, Dil se Salim.”

As of now, people of Raiganj seem to be encircled by whisper campaigns by BJP/RSS and the money and muscle power of TMC, but the filing of nomination papers by candidates on March 25 was a study in contrast – while other party candidates came in huge cars to file their nominations, Salim walked over six kilometers, leading a rally of thousands of supporters, to file his papers.