Residents of a remote Bankura village refused to offer candidates for political parties and unanimously fielded a school teacher as an Independent to fight the polls in the battle for the panchayat.
The political parties did not get anyone to contest the polls for them and after the end of the nomination withdrawal process, the teacher won the election uncontested.
Residents of Jamthol village, which falls under Bankura's Chhatna Assembly constituency, said the decision was taken at a meeting last month to teach a lesson to political parties for failing to construct a bridge over a narrow river despite multiple assurances.
"The bridge is very important for us. The culvert that was made at least 50 years ago submerged in every monsoon disconnecting us from the mainland. Every year the leaders come and take our votes with the assurance to construct the bridge as soon as the elections were over. This time we did not trust anyone and fielded our own candidate," said Krishnapada Murmu, one of those who headed the meeting last month.
At the same meeting, it was also decided that no one from the village would contest for any political party. Jamthol is under Dhaban gram panchayat with around 700 voters.
The bridge on Jamthol-Joharia road connects Purulia with Bankura and is important for residents of at least two dozen villages in the two Jungle Mahal districts. The villagers had started a movement in the past two years and reached out to both the Trinamul representatives of local bodies as well as the BJP MLA from Chhatna.
"If they are indifferent to our plea, then why will you make them represent us? Though we are negligible in number, we tried to send out a message to all political parties that we can fight our own battle. I became the candidate on behalf of the villagers following a unanimous decision," said Avijit Murmu, the victorious candidate who teaches biology at a high school in Purulia.
A villager said Avijit was chosen as their candidate as he was a graduate and could communicate with the administration and government for their longstanding demand.
A source in the administration said a proposal for the bridge had already been sent to the state government for approval but it was yet to be cleared.
"We have already sent a proposal for the bridge earlier this year to the state government. It is around Rs 1.63 crore. But the proposal is yet to be sanctioned," said Sishutosh Pramanik, the Chhatna BDO.
The leaders of three prominent political parties admitted their failure to field a candidate from the Bankura village. They tried to justify their effort to fulfil their demand.
"The demand is justified. We had told the administration to build the bridge but that has not been done yet. We did not think of fielding a candidate as the villagers had unanimously fielded their own," said Trinamul's Bankura district president Dibyeundu Singha Mahapatra.
Satya Narayan Mukherjee, the BJP MLA from Chhatna, said he did speak to the local BDO but the money that the government could afford was meagre to get a bridge constructed.
"The state government can spare only Rs 30 lakh to build the bridge. I am trying to get some more funds. It is not only the BJP, but no political party could field their candidates in the village. We have conveyed our support for the independent candidate," said Mukherjee.
CPM leader Ajit Pati said his party was first to support the movement of the villagers when they started hitting the street.
"We are with them for a long time and never thought of fielding our candidate as we support their demand," he said.
Political observers said though the village was one among over 61,000 rural body seats across Bengal, they could show their might to give a lesson to all political parties.
