Two celebrity candidates, Trinamul’s Satabdi Roy in Birbhum and the BJP’s Babul Supriyo in Asansol, faced protests during their campaigns on Tuesday.

In Birbhum, Roy faced an agitation by a group of women demanding drinking water in their areas, which she had promised during her campaign for the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

The agitating women kept shouting their demands for drinking water for about half an hour, before Roy promised them prompt solution.

“There is no pipeline for water supply in our area, although the other parts of the town have the facility…. There are a few tube-wells, which have remained damaged for years. We have to walk three-four kilometres daily for drinking water,” said Soumi Roy, a homemaker from Hatzanbazar.

“Ten years ago we appealed to her, sought her help to sort out the problem,” she said.

Roy had to call up the local Trinamul councillor, seeking his intervention so that the problem gets solved promptly.

“The women came to me demanding drinking water. I have already allotted five tube-wells, but they did not know about it,” said the Birbhum MP.

Around 60km away, in Asansol, BJP’s candidate Supriyo faced resistance from an alleged group of Trinamul workers in Jamuria’s Sripur, where he was conducting a road-show.

The BJP alleged that Trinamul workers stopped the road show and started sloganeering against Supriyo and his party.

“They not only tried to stop my campaign but also tried to provoke my party workers,” Supriyo alleged. “There could have been a violent clash had I not requested the Trinamul workers to stop,” he added.

Trinamul’s West Burdwan district president V. Shivadasan, however, said: “Hundreds of our party workers were on the same road where Supriyo was holding the road-show. Our workers were there to attend the nomination-filing programme of our candidate Moon Moon Sen. The BJP workers were raising anti-Trinamul slogans.”

Residents of Hatzanbazar agitate in front of Satabdi Roy. Himadri Mondal