The desperation for absolute control of the entire Chopra Assembly segment by a section of Trinamul Congress leaders, including local MLA Hamidul Rahaman, by crushing the Opposition is one of the major reasons for the rise of Tajemul Islam aka JCB, senior TMC functionaries of North Dinajpur district said.

Since 2011, when Mamata Banerjee assumed the chief minister’s office, TMC leaders in Chopra left no stone unturned to gain complete control of the Assembly segment at the inter-district border of Darjeeling and North Dinajpur and perched between Nepal and Bangladesh in the north and south and the state of Bihar in the northwest.

“These leaders, including the local MLA, would often say that they have ‘sanitized’ Chopra and no other political party has the courage to establish its support base there. Such a policy of political hegemony gave JCB and others like him absolute power as they enjoyed the patronage of some of our leaders,” said a senior TMC leader based in Raiganj who didn’t want to be named.

That the TMC has had complete control over Chopra was evident in elections after elections.

Since 2009, the BJP has won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat four times, but Chopra has remained a TMC bastion.

“Unlike the other six seats where BJP secured huge leads in Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat, the TMC got a lead from Chopra (Congress in 2009 as it was TMC’s ally then) in all the elections. This time, Trinamool got a lead of 92,131 votes,” pointed out a political observer.

In 2009, when Congress had fielded a candidate in the seat, it was ahead of BJP by 55,000 votes. In 2014 and 2019, TMC got leads of 23,000 votes and 49,000 votes respectively. In 2022, when the panchayat elections were held across Bengal, Chopra had witnessed bloodshed and even loss of lives. In the block, there are eight panchayats having a total of 245 members, a 24-seat panchayat samiti and three seats of North Dinajpur Zilla Parishad.

“The TMC had won all these seats uncontested at last year’s panchayat elections. Election was not held in a single seat. These results prove the party’s control
over voters of the block,” the observer added.

CPM leaders of the district, who were vocal after the video showing a man resembling Islam mercilessly caning a man and a woman went viral, said Islam aka JCB could make such moves because he is backed by TMC leaders, which gave him a kind of immunity from any police action.

“TMC leaders use him and his associates during elections to intimidate people and do all sorts of unethical acts to ensure that their party only gets votes. JCB, on the other hand, takes the return by extorting and torturing people to prove his power,” said Anwarul Haque, the district CPM secretary.

On Sunday, as the video clip went viral, Rahaman, the local MLA, had almost condoned the act. “He (JCB) might have made a mistake but the woman was also at fault,” he had said, much to the displeasure of a section of TMC leaders. Such remarks made the party leadership act and on Tuesday, Kanailal Agarwala, the district president, served a show cause notice on him.

“The MLA has been asked to reply within seven days as being the local legislator, why he couldn’t stop such an incident from happening. Also, he should refrain from making any comment which is against party’s lines,” said a source.

Meanwhile, Governor C V Ananda Bose, who had termed the incident at Chopra as “barbaric,” reached Siliguri on Tuesday from Delhi. He met a woman who had earlier faced torture in Cooch Behar but didn’t go to Chopra or Fulbari.

“I am ready to meet the victims of Chopra. They can meet me or I can also come and meet them,” he said, and in the afternoon, flew back to Delhi.