Congress leader Deepa Das Munshi is ready to run for the Lok Sabha from Raiganj but faces a starting-line hurdle — most colleagues who used to draw up strategies have left the party and joined rivals.
Deepa, among those in the Bengal unit advocating a go-alone line and keen to demonstrate that Raiganj is still a bastion of the Congress, admitted she is short of strategists. Another challenge is that fresh plans must be devised so that their “old colleagues” do not get any inkling of the moves and an advantage.
“A section of Congress leaders moved to other parties for their own interests. We will make fresh strategies which are unknown to them,” she said.
Sources said that over the years, leaders like Kanaialal Agarwal of Islampur, Golam Rabbani of Goalpokhor, Subhash Goswami of Dalkhola, Sandip Biswas of Raiganj, Kartik Pal of Kaliyaganj and Shibani Majumdar of Hemtabad used to plan the election campaign and other strategies to ensure Congress’ win in the seat. Mohit Sengupta, the district Congress president, was also with them.
Among these leaders, all except Sengupta have left Congress. While Shibani Majumdar has joined BJP, all others are in Trinamul. In fact, Kanaialal is the Trinamul candidate from Raiganj seat and will contest against Deepa.
“All of them are well aware about the plans and can easily assess as what Congress would do to consolidate support. This is a major concern for the party here as we have to come up with new plans to outwit them,” said a Congress leader.
Kanaialal, when asked about the issue, spoke in similar lines.
“As I am based in Islampur, I have done elections for Congress over years and have brought victory in the Assembly seats of my sub-division for Priya Ranjan Das Munshi and even Deepa Das Das Munshi. We know well what the Congress can do and have accordingly planned our campaign. Congress will not stand in the contest this time,” he said.
Deepa now plans to play the AIIMS card and invoke late husband and ex-Raiganj MP Priya Ranjan Das Munshi’s legacy. “It was because of Trinamul that the AIIMS could not be set up in Raiganj,” she said.
