The harsh realities of life faced by five lakh bidi workers and 40,000 agro-based families will play a determining role in the upcoming elections to the South Maldah Lok Sabha constituency, which borders Bangladesh. Add to that the families that have lost their livelihood from the breakage of the river banks.
The international border with Bangladesh constitutes most of Kaliyachok block number 3, and large areas of Old Maldah and English Bajar assemblies. Those who have land on the other side of the Zero point in Bangladesh have been pushed to live on a bare subsistence. Only the Krishak Sabha pays any heed to their problems. The BSF has specified a window of time in which they can go to their own land. For those whose houses are also on the wrong side of the zero point, it is like being a foreigner in one’s own land. After the window of time has passed, they cannot cross over even to see a doctor for an emergency. Farmers are not allowed to cultivate Jute or Maize because it hinders surveillance by the BSF. Sometimes, ripe crop is stolen from the other side. Even when the farmer manages to bring his produce over the zero point he often has to deal with smugglers, often being forced to help them sneak their goods across the border. For many years, the Krishak Sabha has demanded that the central government to take over these lands, compensate the farmers and give them an equal area of land on this side.
There are almost 5 lakh bidi workers who live in the South Maldah area scattered over Farakka, Samsherganj, Baishnabnagar, Kaliachok, and Manickchok. Neither the Congress nor the Trinamool Congress has ever taken up the crisis of these workers with the centre or in the Parliament. The hospital for Bidi workers and the Noor Muhammad Smriti Mahavidyalay in Dhuliyan of Samshergunj were also built with the Left Front as the principal driving force, with the initiative of Abul Hasnat Khan himself. That one hospital too is gradually dying with the number of doctors decreasing and most medicines being unavailable. Ironically, the sitting MP Abul Hasem Khan Chowdhury was the Minister of State in the Health department. He had all the means but did nothing for this hospital.
In Maldah and Murshidabad, the breaking river banks have affected thousands of families over a 156 km long stretch. In Kaliachok, block number 2, 19 maujas don’t exist anymore. Similarly in Manickchok, 27 to 28 maujas have been washed off the face of the earth by the river. Three gram panchayats - KB Jhaubona, Poranpur and Piyarpur - have met with a similar fate. Most of the people who have lost their homes and lands to the river have gone over and settled in Jharkhand. Of the existing Gram Panchayats, there are many that have lost almost half of their land area to the Ganga.The Left Front has demanded that the new maujas springing up on the Jharkhand side due to this migration be included within Maldah district.
The South Maldah Loksabha constituency is formed by five assembly constituencies of Maldah district, English bazaar, Manickchok, Sujapur, Mothabari, and Baishnabnagar, and two assembly constituencies of Murshidabad district, Farakka and Samshergunj. The Left Front Candidate Abul Hasnat Khan has been elected to the assembly four times from Farakka from 1977 to 1996, and to the parliament twice from Jangipur from 1998 to 2004.
For the last 8 years Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury of the Congress has been the MP from Maldah. His son and elder brother are MLAs from Baishnabnagar and Sujapur. This picture captures how the organisation of the Congress in Maldah revolves around the Ghani family of Kotoyali. But people all over the area are questioning what their MP with two MLA’s in his own family, has done for the place with the twenty five crores allotted to him in the last five years.
In his campaign, Abul Hasnat Khan speaks of arsenic free drinking water, an agenda that the Left had dedicatedly worked for, and that has completely been neglected by the new state government. During the Left front rule, two water processing plants were built in Baishnabgar and Manickchok. The Trinamool Congress government has washed its hands off this problem.
April 21, 2014