A jailed strongman and a former police officer: Bolpur and Birbhum feel the presence of two people not in the fray

Polling in Bengal

Anubrata Mondal is nowhere to be seen in the Bolpur-Birbhum region. The Trinamool strongman is in Tihar jail, arrested in a cattle smuggling case. In the 2021 Assembly elections, he was the face of the Trinamool Congress, the muscleman of the party organisation who enthused the cadres. Now, as the BJP attacks Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for depending on the likes of Mondal for garnering votes, the Trinamool is cautious about using his picture or name in campaign material.
And yet, Mondal is everywhere. It is the BJP that invokes his name more often as a symbol of the muscle power and money power that have taken hold of its main rival in West Bengal. The Trinamool needs his clout in the region to keep up the spirit of its cadres in the two constituencies of Bolpur and Birbhum. So, Mondal remains a ghostly presence in the region that is going to the polls on May 13.

If Mondal is the absentee face of Trinamool in Bolpur, it is former police officer Debasish Dhar who is the missing hero of the BJP in Birbhum. Dhar, who has served as the Superintendent of Police in the area, was placed on suspension after the police firing in Sitalkuchi constituency in Cooch Behar district during the Assembly election of 2021.

Dhar was named the BJP candidate for Birbhum, but the state government did not give him the ‘no dues’ certificate after he resigned from the IPS. Consequently, his nomination papers were rejected and the BJP had to nominate another candidate, Debtanu Bhattacharya, a former RSS leader. Dhar’s attempt to get the Supreme Court to intervene in getting the state to issue the certificate did not succeed.

Dhar had done a lot of ground work in Birbhum in anticipation of his candidacy, meeting local leaders and creating networks in the lower tiers. Without Dhar, the BJP had to struggle that much harder in its efforts to unseat three-term Member of Parliament Satabdi Roy of Trinamool.

The sitting MP of Bolpur is Asit Kumar Mal of TMC who has been fielded again. The BJP is represented by Priya Saha and CPI M by Shyamali Pradhan. Mal had earlier represented Hansan Assembly constituency from 1996 to 2016.

Birbhum has a strong Muslim presence, but the Trinamool doesn’t want a polarisation on religious lines as that would work to the advantage of the BJP.