This year’s Lok Sabha election in the Hooghly constituency is about the concerns of the people; the problems they are grappling with every day. These issues have gone unattended by the sitting TMC MP, Ratna De Nag.
The villagers of Hooghly have been asking the TMC government why they have not received their wages in the last 3-4 months, for the work they did under the MNREGA scheme. Under the TMC government, the 100 day MNREGA scheme has turned into a mess. When it came to completing the rural work, villagers were made to invest all their labour power but when it came to paying the wages, the authorities vanished. Like this scheme, many other services which should be provided by the government, have been dismantled by the TMC.
There has been an outright attack on and dysfunction of the decentralized Panchayat system, which had been West Bengal’s pride under the Left Front rule. The Panchayati system had been central in providing access to state services to the villagers like providing safe drinking water and agricultural support among others. However, since the TMC came to office, the role of the gram level panchayats in the decentralized governance process has been compromised to a great extent.
The Left Front candidate, Pradeep Saha, raises the issue of the TMC government not being able to give any support to the farmers in times of rising prices of agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and seeds. Additionally, the farmers have also not been getting a fair price for their harvest. The agrarian crisis has been looming large over the Bengal countryside. The number of debt ridden farmer suicides has been on a rise in the state.
The present TMC government has not been able to make any positive impact in the lives of the common people, and on the other hand has undone the progressive strides made under the Left Front rule. West Bengal had witnessed glorious success in the implementation of land reforms achieved during the Left Front government; providing patta of agricultural land and homestead land to the landless peasants and tenurial security to the bargadars. Since the Mamata government has come to power- whose allegiances lie with the large landowners- there have been numerable cases of forceful evictions and taking over of pattas, leaving many poor peasants landless and homeless once again.
Pradeep Saha, the CPI (M) candidate holds full confidence that ‘if free and fair elections take place, the people of Hooghly will stand by the Left Front. They will vote against the stalled rural development under the present Mamata government.’
In Hooghly, there also remains the issue of closed industries. There has been no effort made by the sitting MP and TMC candidate to open the closed Dunlop factory or the jute factories.
The BJP candidate in Hooghly, Chandan Mitra, has also pulled strings against the incumbent TMC candidate, hoping to make a mark in the ballot boxes. He hopes of banking on the Modi wave to increase votes for the BJP in Hooghly. This however, seems very unlikely as people of Bengal will never accept a party like the BJP.
What is clear is that the people of Hooghly are disgusted and disgruntled by TMC rule and its inefficient governance. They are looking towards the Left Front again for pro-people governance and pro-people policies.
Hooghly for Pro-People Policies and Governance
Apr 30, 2014
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