Tapash Chatterjee is fighting the Assembly battle on familiar turf. As former deputy mayor of the now defunct Board of Councillors at Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation and earlier, as the then chairman of Rajarhat Gopalpur Municipality, and also a resident of Rajarhat, he knows the area like the back of his hand. He faces a two-way fight with an energised BJP and a youthful CPM.
⚫ The race has reached the last mile. How confident are you?
I am quite confident. Everyone is expecting the battle to be easy for me. I am a son of this soil. I have served this area for 38 years. My party has a strong organisation here. I find no difference in the situation between the first mile and the last mile of the race.
⚫ How do you rate your main opponents?
The profile of the BJP candidate (Bhaskar Roy) is being perceived as a misfit for the electorate in this constituency. He is an unknown face. As for Gautam Deb’s son (Saptarshi, the Left Front candidate), he is known by his father’s name, not his own. Neither of the two was visible last year, during the lockdown or the Covid crisis.
⚫ Had the outgoing MLA, your former party colleague, Sabyasachi Dutta contested from here, would it have been a different ball game?
He knew he had done little work here over 10 years. He knew I might contest from here. So he got scared and ran away from this seat (to Bidhannagar).
⚫ As Bidhannagar mayor, Duttahad left you without any portfolio for months though you were the deputy mayor. How would you rate him as mayor and MLA?
He would fail to get any marks. He neither approved a single trade licence as mayor nor took any pro-poor measures. Corporation ke dubiechhen. Uni kajer manush-i na. Name a single job he has done in Rajarhat as MLA! He left the party (in 2019) but clung on to the post. Had he resigned, we could have done some work here in the last year and half.
⚫ Will his alleged non-performance be a liability for you? He was elected on your party’s ticket, after all.
People were upset with his inaction as was the party. O lokta okejo lok. People have understood that. Next door, Sujit Bose did so much for Lake Town. But he (Sabyasachi) did nothing here. He was a liability. He is past now. It would have worked in my favour if he contested from here against me. That’s why he fled (to Bidhannagar).
⚫ What about New Town’s infamous Syndicate?
The chief minister has managed to rein in the Syndicate. It was at its worst in his (Sabyasachi’s) time. We have been able to make the local boys involved in the construction business understand that hooliganism will not be tolerated if they continue in the business. So things are much better now.
⚫ What are your election promises?
I will run the Patharghata hospital properly. (At present there is a primary health centre). There is space already allocated for it. I will start work. I will offer free medicines to the poor by introducing a mobile van with a doctor. Every fortnight, it will visit a ward. I will build an electric crematorium in Rajarhat. It will be a Rs 2.5 crore project. There is a facility on land donated by a private donor by a canal but it is a primitive one, using wooden logs (Hajratola burning ghat in Golashia). Locals prefer to go all the way to Nimtala. I also plan to distribute reference text books among students. I tell people that they will not find a Hindu like me as I have built a temple in Narayanpur and organise Durga puja and several Kali pujas in my locality. Also they will not find a Muslim like me as I have developed and beautified a burial ground for them and run a school for their children.
⚫ Rajarhat has a sizeable Muslim population. Are you worried at the possibility of Muslim votes getting divided?
This election will not just decide the 2021 Assembly result but also reflect what will happen in 2024 (Lok Sabha election). BJP won more seats than its proportion of voteshare. We know that 68 per cent voters did not vote for BJP. If we can consolidate that vote, we need not worry about victory. We need to tell voters not to bother about Hindu-Muslim issues but think about the dire strait of the economy. Our main enemy now is communalism. In Bengal, since Trinamul Congress is the main anti-communal force, people should support us, just as in Tripura, since CPM is the main anti-communal force, they should be supported to keep the BJP at bay. I used to know CPM to be a secular, anti-communal party when I was a part of it. It has joined hands with a communal force (Indian Secular Front, led by cleric Abbas Siddique of the shrine of Furfura Sharif in Hooghly) now and become BJP’s B team.
⚫ Which party will be the runner-up in this seat?
Though the candidate is weak, I think BJP will be second.
⚫ Though New Town has less than 11,000 voters, what will you say to voters of New Town?
The cornerstone of development today is participatory planning. Many educated citizens live in New Town. I will seek their suggestions. We will sit with NKDA and figure out a way to let residents have a voice since the township still does not have the numbers to have an elected civic authority. Some areas are still under the panchayat. But what development will the panchayat do there? We will also request Hidco to take care of the fringe areas as a township cannot prosper in isolation.
⚫ The Covid-19 situation is going from bad to worse, especially with gatherings occasioned by political campaigns. Your comments?
The Election Commission of India should have thought about this. They should have sat with political parties at the very start and figured out a way. Instead, it spread out the election in Bengal over so many phases over a month and a half! Had it not been for their decision, the election would have been over by now. Development has been brought to a halt. Election holey jomayet jonosobha hobe.Supporter-ra lorai er hujuge thake.There is a lot of emotion. What is the alternative? Had they told us not to hold rallies, we could have thought of other ways like going door to door or doing digital campaigns. Vote-er porer din theke amra eta niye nambo Corporation theke.
⚫ Your parting message to voters.
Late into the night at 1am, there are three entities who will answer your call — the police, the street dog and Tapas Chatterjee.