DHANPUR:
Jestho Kumar Murasing, a 90-year-old Murasingh tribal, sits with his friends at the
Dakshin Taibandal market chatting about everything but the coming election. The people milling around say they have no complaints and they are content with the life they lead here - living in thatched houses, using firewood to cook, using lanterns to light up homes and without having even seen what an LPG stove looks like.
Jestho and his friends vote from the Dhanpur constituency, CPM's power centre from where chief minister
Manik Sarkar has been winning every election since he pitched his tent here in 1998. Before him, his party colleague Samar Choudhury had been winning the seat since 1972.
Jestho says he had not bothered to earn a living when he was young. "There is everything out there in the forest - food, fruits and firewood. Whatever I could earn by selling fruits or vegetables growing in the wild was enough to buy the rice, kerosene and salt, which the government provides at cheap rates," he says without any hint of unhappiness on his face.
Are they happy with Manik Sarkar too? "Yes. He often comes visiting us and we talk to him. He provides us with food at low prices. We are all happy because we are living in peace." The tribal population of the constituency, comprising about 18% of the total 42,763 voters, has always been CPM and Sarkar loyalists, like in all the other 19 tribal-majority assembly constituencies.
For them, development is all about what they have at hand. There are metalled roads winding through forest areas, the hospitals are not far away and schools are not scarce.
On the other hand, 22-year-old tribal youth Biswajit Tipra, a member of the young generation that Sarkar's challenger - the BJP - is trying to woo in its big fight to take control of the assembly, has no time for idling away like his seniors at the market tea stall. He also has no time for discussing politics or even the coming election.
Unlike Jestho, Biswajit and many of his peer group want to earn for their families and themselves. "I could not pass Class X, but I am earning," Bisawjit says, as he holds tightly to a bicycle for local agent Swapan Sarkar to offload stacks of raw rubber sheets.
Tripura's hills are abundant with rubber plantations. In addition to the natural rubber cover, Tripura Forest Development and Plantation Corporation Limited, a PSU of the state government, has conserved areas degraded by jhum cultivation by raising rubber plantations. This has not only generated employment in rural areas but also helped people raise their income levels.
Tripura ranks second in rubber production in India, next only to Kerala, but the quality of rubber produced here is superior.
Biswajit cycles about 2 km from his village to sell the rubber sheets processed at his home. Swapan buys the sheets for Rs 108 per kg, which he takes to Sonamura and sells to dealers with a profit margin of Re 1 per kg. The rubber collected from all over the state is then sent to their final destination in Ludhiana.
At Dhanpur panchayat, which shares its western boundary with Bangladesh, and is about a 45-minute drive from Taibandal through hilly forested terrain, there are power connections and concrete houses. The people here, who are mostly Bengalis, are happy too but wish that they could meet their representative Manik Sarkar more often. They talk about the iron-heavy water supplied by the government pipeline and the absence of a college here. The BJP has made it a talking point in its campaign that the CM's constituency does not have a college.
Pradip Debnath, another young voter from this constituency, who lives in a more urban setting at Dhanpur panchayat, is closely following the build-up to the election and is hoping that the election is free and fair.
"CPM cadres are campaigning and so are BJP cadres. But, CPM people have been preparing for the election for one year. The BJP boys have only started it now and I wonder how much area they would be able to cover. So far across the country, wherever BJP has gone, it has won. I can't say what is in store in Tripura, but we want that the election be fair and free," Pradip said.
