Dhanbad: Nirsa assembly constituency of Dhanbad was set for a two-corner contest despite nine candidates in the fray. However, the entry of a JMM rebel, Ashok Kumar Mondal as a candidate of the new party JLKM, have taken the electoral fight into an interesting three-corner battle.
Although sitting BJP MLA Aparna Sengupta is confident of retaining the seat, CPI (ML) candidate Arup Chatterjee, who won the seat in the 2009 and 2014 elections, is also slated to give a tough fight.
This year's election is also seen as a referendum on the decision of the Marxist Coordination Committee (MCC), the party founded by veteran trade unionist and left ideologue A K Roy, to merge with the CPI(ML). Though Chatterjee, who represented Nirsa twice on an MCC ticket, claimed it to be a need of the hour to strengthen the left unity, there are old MCC cadres who have yet to fathom it.
Being located on the borders neighbouring West Bengal, Nirsa is home to more than 50% of voters who are native speakers of the Bangla language, especially in the rural areas, and it is them who would decide the fate of the candidates, said Narayan Singh, a villager. Surprisingly, this time the slogan of ‘Batange to Katenge' (??????) is also reverberating in the rural areas of the constituency, he said.
Talking to TOI, Chatterjee, who represented Nirsa in 2009 and 2014 by defeating BJP nominees Ashok Mandal and Ganesh Mishra, said, "MCC had its own strong support base in the area. After being a candidate of the INDIA bloc, comprising both JMM, Congress and RJD, our support base has further broadened, and I am confident of winning the seat this time."
He accused BJP of dividing voters on communal lines and alleged that the sitting BJP MLA did nothing for the development of the area.
Ashok Mondal, who was initially with BJP, shifted to JMM before contesting on a JLKM ticket this time, however, felt that it was because of the left politics and their "arm-twisting" tactics in the constituency that hundreds of medium and big industries were closed in the area and lakhs of workers were rendered jobless.
He alleged that Gurudas Chatterjee, the father of Arup, represented Nirsa thrice in 1990, 1995, and 2000, and in the 25-year tenure of the father-son duo, many of the industries downed their shutters.
Mondal claimed that it was Gurudas who did not allow the construction of the Telpool dam in Panchet because of his impractical demands.
"It was Arup who was instrumental in the merger of MCC with the CPI(ML) just to get those INDIA bloc votes, but people will elect me as they are fed up with the politics of the left and the right," he added.
Sengupta, who has also switched from the leftist Forward Bloc to the saffron brigade and is now an elected member of BJP, claimed that she has all along been working for the development of the area, including the resumption of work on the Maithon Jalapurty Yojna, and she would win the seat with a larger margin this time.