The CPM’s young face and Sanjukta Morcha candidate at Nandigram, Minakshi Mukherjee, is something of a lone warrior.
She was nominated by the Left Front as the candidate pegged to enter an epic poll battle in which chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her former aide Suvendu Adhikari would be keenly watched.
Sitting in front of the home of a 55-year-old woman in Nandigram’s Kalicharanpur earlier this week, Minakshi cut close to the image of a Left politician.
The woman, who did not want to be named, lost her husband in the 2007 land agitation, which arguably was a pitfall for the Left at Nandigram, where CPM offices at Kalicharanpur, Gokulnagar, Sonachura, Kendemari and Ahmadabad have all been shuttered since 2011.
Minakshi has taken it upon herself to reverse the trend and to bring local politics back to “the basics”.
However, the task for Minakshi is immense as she carries the burden of the police firing that killed 14 villagers on March 14 in 2007. The CPM candidate is aware of the challenges and caught between the high-decibel campaign of the big two.
Minakshi is trying to collate the votes that had left the Left fold over the years while trying to reach out to those who are upset with alleged corruption of Trinamul Congress leaders in the area.
“Most residents in this area, especially those who wanted to vote for the Left, have been threatened in the past 10 years. All that we want back is our right to vote,” said the widow, casting a furtive glance at Minakshi, who wore a concerned look.
Nandigram is home to 17 gram panchayats and the Left has reportedly had almost zero presence in 12 in the past 10 years. Minakshi has been visiting each of the panchayats for the past 10 days, leaving home as early as 6am and campaigning till 10pm on most days.
Although she is not equipped with the kind of resources that Suvendu or Mamata has, she has been resilient and unforgiving on herself, having covered nearly 200 booths across Nandigram’s 1 and 2 blocks over the past week and a half.
“I am telling the people to be fearless. Yes, they may have been threatened or beaten in the past, but that will come to an end now. Trinamul has thrived on false promises, something evidenced by former party member Suvendu. But even he, who was not of much use in one party, will be no better in the other,” she said.
Minakshi brought up the issue of nearby Garupara, which is infamous in the Nandigram area for its history of political violence.
“People have often been told to wait outside the booths while their vote is cast, or marked with black ink the night before and told to wait at home,” Minakshi explained, the 55-year-old woman nodding in agreement.
“Nandigram has been dishonoured by robbing us of our franchise,” said the widow.
At the CPM’s district headquarters, district secretary Niranjan Sihi was circumspect about the April 1 polls in Nandigram, where campaigning ends in five days. “If votes can be cast rightfully, we are hopeful of the CPM making a comeback,” he said.
“The people have been confused a lot by Suvendu’s defection, but hopefully, it will benefit us,” Sihi added while news poured in that a campaign vehicle of the CPM had been damaged allegedly by rivals.
There are approximately 2.53 lakh voters in Nandigram, of whom nearly 70,000 hail from the minority community.
Aware that the minority votes would play a crucial role in deciding which way Nandigram would vote, CPM politburo member Mohd Salim and Indian Secular Front leader Abbas Siddique addressed a rally in support of Minakshi at the Sitananda College grounds in Nandigram on Friday.
Siddique emphatically appealed to the people to vote for the Left as they had a long history of stalling the entry of the BJP into Bengal.
“We have asked the people to remain united and ensure that their voting rights are not snatched away,” Minakshi said and added that the people of the state should look forward to a surprise on May 2.
