CPI(M) banks on young Turk Aishie Ghosh in triangular fight in Jamuria

The Jamuria Assembly constituency in West Bardhaman district will decide the fate of perhaps the Left Front's most prominent young candidate, JNUSU president Aishie Ghosh. In one of the few remaining bastions of the CPI(M) in West Bengal, the party preferred Ghosh over its two-time MLA Jahanara Khan, who held onto the seat in the last two Assembly elections fending off the Trinamool Congress (TMC) onslaught.

The political equations in Jamuria changed in 2019 when the BJP candidate Babul Supriya surged ahead over the TMC and CPI(M) candidates in the constituency. Even as the CPI(M) has considerable organization in the constituency, but the BJP’s rise has made it a three-corner contest in the Assembly elections.

Ghosh, born and brought up in Durgapur, in the same district, left Bengal for Delhi for higher studies in 2013. She is confident of a CPI(M) hat-trick. “Jamuria was and will remain a CPI(M) bastion. The TMC, BJP, and a section of the media, are trying to weave a narrative that this time the Assembly elections will be a bipolar contest between the TMC and the BJP, while others are irrelevant. The people will prove them wrong,” Ghosh told DH.

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However, Ghosh, who entered the limelight during an agitation in December 2019, believes that the differences in contesting Assembly elections in Bengal and students politics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) are only in degree and not in kind.

“Whether its communalism, employment opportunities for the youth, better education and conditions of living, the issues we agitated for at JNU are not much different in Bengal and Jamuria. My politics will remain the same,” said Ghosh.

CPI(M) is highlighting the issues of lack of employment opportunities and new industries in Jamuria under the TMC government.

TMC has fielded Hareram Singh, a coal mine worker and leader of the coal mine workers association, affiliated to its labour wing Indian National Trinamool Trade Union Congress (INTTUC).

The move is aimed at gaining the support of coal mine workers in Jamuria, who form a considerable section of the electorate in the coal-belt constituency. Singh said that they will wrest the seat from the CPI(M) “riding on the success” of the welfare schemes of the TMC Government.

As for the BJP candidate, Tapas Roy, he is hopeful of getting the mandate in his favour banking on the personal charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the development initiatives of his government at the Centre.

Locals said that poor conditions of roads, lack of drinking water supply and alleged coal smuggling, pollution, and lack of adequate health facilities in Jamuria have been plaguing them for long. With 27 per cent out of the 2.2 lakh voters in Jamuria belonging to the minority community, they will play a key role in the Assembly elections.