A dusty bust of an elderly bespectacled person welcomed this correspondent to Sagar Kutir — a shabby tin-roofed hut surrounded by a weedy courtyard in Baradongal village, located 13km north of Hooghly’s Arambagh town.
“He is our Gandhi... Arambagh’s Gandhi,” says Sanjit Adhikari, secretary of the Sagar Kutir Jano Kalyan Samiti, pointing to the bust of Gandhian politician and former Bengal chief minister Prafulla Chandra Sen.
Sen (1897-1990) moved to Arambagh after being inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s address in the Calcutta session in 1920 and dedicated himself to advocating the Congress’s anti-British non-violent movement. He became known as “Arambagher Gandhi” or the “Gandhi of Arambagh”.
But his tenure as chief minister (1962-67) was marred by a severe food crisis.
Sen, who was inducted by Bidhan Chandra Roy into his cabinet as agriculture minister, became chief minister after Roy died in 1962. Within three years, the state faced a drastic food crisis following a countrywide drought. Sen advocated a food rationing system in urban areas. He imposed a heavy levy on the rice millers and cracked down on the smuggling of rice from one area to another, especially from the rice bowl of Burdwan, to build up food stock.
However, the communists, who were in the Opposition, spread the narrative of how Sen had failed as chief minister to keep the food supply chain intact.
During the food crisis, Sen asked the people of Arambagh to plant banana trees and advised them to eat green bananas as an alternative to reduce rice consumption.
“His intention was never bad, but all those actions went against him because of politics. He also tried to introduce wheat or millet into the diet of the Bengali people, apart from his advice on banana tree planting. But the Opposition leaders built a narrative that the chief minister was advising people to eat ‘kanchkola’ (green bananas as vegetables),” says local historian Debashis Seth, who has penned multiple books
on the history of Arambagh and Prafulla Sen.
In 1967, the Grand Old Party lost the Bengal election and Ajoy Mukherjee’s Bangla Congress formed the first United Front government with Left support. Sen lost his Arambagh seat.
The food crisis may be a thing of the past but regular floods are a problem in Goghat, Khanakul, and Arambagh, where 70 per cent of the population depend on agriculture.
A large part of the Arambagh Lok Sabha constituency, including Haripal, Tarakeswar and Goghat, is the hub of potatoes.
Amid the direct battle between Trinamool and the BJP, agrarian distress is a major issue for Arambagh.
“Inundation of agricultural land causes a huge loss to us every year. Once the
fields are inundated, they remain waterlogged for several days, resulting in huge
damage to crop production,” said Anil Dhara, a farmer from Goghat.
Among different pockets of Bengal, where the anti-CPM wave swirled long before Mamata came to power in 2011, Arambagh witnessed a series of protests against the Left.
“We can’t forget the CPM’s time. They did not allow us to vote freely, and we had no freedom of speech. Leaders like Anil Basu (a seven-term MP) used to persecute us even for commenting against his actions. It was Mamata Banerjee who protested against the CPM atrocities,” says Srikanta Laga, who runs a small restaurant in Baradangal bazaar with his son.
“But... the situation has changed now,” Laga, the 54-year-old trader, adds, ending the conversation.
A teacher in Arambagh, who did not wish to be named, added: “A lot of TMC leaders here began behaving like the CPM, winning elections by oppressing people. That is why the people again started hunting for another option to teach a lesson to this ruling dispensation.”
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Mamata’s party felt the heat as its nominee, Aparupa Poddar, barely scraped through with a narrow margin of 1,142 votes against the BJP’s Tapan Roy. Her margin of victory in 2014 was over 3.46 lakh votes.
Despite the TMC regaining dozens of Assembly seats in 2021 in places where the BJP significantly led in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, their “victory chariot” was stopped in agrarian Arambagh as all four Assembly seats — Arambagh, Goghat, Khanakul, and Pursurah — were bagged by the saffron camp.
BJP leaders believe if there is a single seat in south Bengal they will win, it is Arambagh. Their candidate, Arup Kanti Digar, a primary school teacher from Goghat, is also confident: “People of Arambagh have turned away from the Trinamool long ago, and they are determined to defeat them.”
BJP's Arup Kanti Digar, a primary school teacher from Goghat, on the campaign trail. Picture by Ananda Adhikari
Worried, the Trinamool has dropped its sitting MP Poddar and has instead fielded Mitali Bag, who comes from a humble farmer’s family, to woo back the voters.
“I am from a very humble background and have reached each village of my constituency. The voters have already understood their mistake by voting for the BJP in 2021,” says Bag, a postgraduate in history and an anganwadi worker.
Trinamool's Mitali Bag interacts with Arambagh constituents. Picture by Ananda Adhikari
However, local political observers said that in a constituency where Muslim voters are barely 15 per cent and polarisation is at its peak in favour of the BJP, the Trinamool will find the going tough.
The fight for Arambagh will be intense. Result day will show if the lotus has bloomed on the land of Arambagh’s Gandhi.
Arambagh votes today
