Asansol, West Bengal:

Reopening factories closed for years, addressing drinking water scarcity in rural pockets and reining in the illegal mining menace in abandoned collieries are the primary issues for the people of Asansol Lok Sabha constituency in West Bengal.

The region cradles the mining and industrial belt of the state, with Raniganj, Pandaveswar and Jamuria assembly segments housing coal mines and Kulti serving as the home to some of the bigger factories.

Asansol, which borders Jharkhand, has a significant percentage of the Hindi-speaking population, mostly migrant workers from Bihar and UP employed in the mines and factories.

While the TMC has repeated Bollywood actor Shatrughan Sinha aka ‘Bihari Babu’ as its candidate for this seat, the BJP settled for its veteran leader Surendrajeet Singh Ahluwalia who was born and raised in the city.

The CPI(M) has fielded Jahanara Khan, a debutant in Lok Sabha polls, in the seat that is also home to a fair number of tribals.

Shatrughan Sinha won the 2022 by-elections here by over 3 lakh votes after BJP MP Babul Supriyo vacated the seat, which he secured in 2014 and 2019, and switched over to the TMC.

Shatrughan Sinha expressed confidence about retaining the seat by a greater margin this time.

“I will win more support from people in the constituency this election,” he told PTI.

Left nominee Khan, a two-time MLA from Jamuria, alleged that neither Mr Sinha nor Mr Supriyo had done much to alleviate the problems of the locals.

“The poorer tribals and minorities in the rural areas are suffering from tremendous drinking water scarcity, but little has been done so far to solve that crisis,” she said.

Alleging that illegal mining from the abandoned collieries in the region is rampant, she said the menace must be stopped to prevent land subsidence and mudslides which claim lives almost every year.

Acknowledging the rural water crisis, TMC’s Pandaveswar MLA Narendranath Chakraborty said water level depletes in the summer months in the mine region which, he maintained, was a “natural occurrence”.

“We are working towards providing water connection to homes, and reservoirs are being built in every block,” he said, adding that water gets supplied through tankers in many places as a stop-gap measure.

Sambhu Majhi, a resident of Kulti, said that he wanted factories, which have been closed for years over issues ranging from “severe trade unionism” to lack of timely modernisation, reopened.

“If the factories are back in operation, our children will not have to migrate in search of livelihood,” he said.

Several well-known factories like those of Sen-Raleigh and Asansol Glass have downed their shutters over the years.

According to Ajay Ghosh of Dishergarh, illegal sand mining from Damodar is also on the rise and needs to be stopped.

The BJP took a while to officially name Mr Ahluwalia, fondly called ‘Sardarji’ by many, for the Asansol seat after Bhojpuri singer Pawan Singh stepped aside from the contest.

In the 2019 elections, Mr Ahluwalia won the neighbouring Bardhaman-Durgapur seat, where the BJP has fielded its former state president Dilip Ghosh this time.

Mr Ahluwalia, also a former Rajya Sabha MP, had won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat in northern West Bengal in 2014.

He won the 2019 elections by a slender margin of 18,540 votes and managed to deliver for his party only one out of the seven assembly seats in Bardhaman-Durgapur during the 2021 state polls.

Mr Ahluwalia faces the litmus test of obfuscating TMC’s gains in Asansol, where five out of seven assembly segments went to the Mamata Banerjee-led party in 2021.

During a recent election rally in Kulti, Ms Banerjee took a dig at Mr Ahluwalia and accused him of playing the vanishing act from Bardhaman-Durgapur during the last five years.

“He could manage to get a ticket for this seat after putting in much effort,” the TMC supremo claimed.

Local BJP leader Jitendra Tiwari claimed that having an experienced campaigner like Mr Ahluwalia in Asansol has boosted the morale of his party’s workers to reclaim the seat.

Brushing aside the TMC allegation of Mr Ahluwalia’s absenteeism, Mr Tiwari asked, “That way, how many times did we see Shatrughan Sinha in Asansol in the last two years?”

A two-term BJP MP from Patna Sahib, Mr Sinha had joined the Congress ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and switched over to the TMC in 2022.

Among his many films, Shatrughan Sinha had co-starred with Amitabh Bachchan in ‘Kaala Patthar’, a 1979 Bollywood hit based on the Chasnala coal mine tragedy in neighbouring Dhanbad.

Calling Mr Sinha an “acting legend”, the Pandaveswar MLA said the star of yesteryears still commands a crazy fan following.

“As an MP, he worked for Asansol and MPLAD funds were properly utilised for the welfare of people,” he said.

Confident about a formidable margin, Chakraborty said the leader meant business when it came to development and maintained a polite demeanor with people.

Local CPI(M) leader Partha Mukherjee claimed that people would vote against the “ideological bankruptcy of TMC and BJP”.

“All anti-TMC and anti-BJP forces will come together to defeat them and we are sure that Jahanara Khan will win Asansol,” he said.

Asansol goes to polls in the fourth phase on May 13.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Patna:

Opposition parties received donations through the electoral bonds scheme, but it was the BJP who used the system for extortion and blackmail, actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha has told NDTV. The Trinamool Congress MP, who is gearing up for the Lok Sabha battle in West Bengal’s Asansol, was in Patna when NDTV caught up with him.

Responding to a question on the Trinamool Congress ranking second on the list of parties that received donations through the now-scrapped system, Mr Sinha said, “Has the Trinamool Congress or any other Opposition party resorted to extortion or blackmail? Have they applied pressure that if you do not give a donation, ED, CBI and Income Tax will go after you? Have those who donated through electoral bonds received contracts worth thousands of crores?”

Mr Sinha said it was the BJP which introduced the electoral bonds scheme for political funding. “You cleared the way, what’s the problem if others jumped in? They did not misuse the system or hatch a conspiracy or pull off a fraud. They did not commit atrocities or threaten people with arrest,” he said.

The ruling BJP, he said, had done “chanda ka dhanda” (business of donation). “You gave out contracts (based on donation), made arrests, threatened people. There is a sea of difference,” he said.

“Whether it is Trinamool Congress or Samajwadi Party or Congress, they received money under the system, but they did not misuse it, they did not try to turn it into fear. You cannot draw a comparison between us and the ruling party,” Mr Sinha said.

According to the data released by the Election Commission of India, the BJP received the maximum funds through these bonds (Rs 6,986.5 crore) since the scheme was implemented in 2018. Trinamool Congress was a distant second (Rs 1,397 crore) and Congress ranked third (Rs 1,334 crore).

Asked if the electoral bonds revelation is now a poll issue, Mr Sinha agreed. He also flagged the Election Commission of India’s response to concerns regarding the Electronic Voting Machines. “People feel that the Election Commission has not come out clear on the question of EVMs. They used shayari to trivialise the matter. Truth and transparency matter. It is equally important that good work is done and good work is seen to be done,” he said.

Earlier with the BJP, Mr Sinha joined the Congress in 2019 and switched to the Trinamool in 2022. He won the Asansol parliamentary seat in a bypoll the same year.

Asansol, West Bengal:

Bollywood actor turned politician and Trinamool Congress MP Shatrughan Sinha took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party over the publicity of the Ram Mandir and said that the number of visitors dropped significantly after the Pran Pratishtha on January 22.

Addressing a public gathering in Bengal’s Asansol, Mr Sinha said that BJP created a big drama even when the temple was not completely built.

“I say it with sadness. After so much publicity (of Ram Temple in Ayodhya), around five lakh people reached there on the first day. Big corporate houses and artists were called but the common man was not invited. However, on the second and third day, only three lakh people reached there. After that, it came down to two lakhs. Now, five thousand, 10 thousand and 20 thousand people are going there,” he said.

“So when Shankaracharyas did not reach the place, the temple was not completed, you created so much drama and did publicity on it. Farmers are sitting on the road. It seems that he is not the Prime Minister but the Publicity Minister. If you just keep preaching, then when do you work?” he added.

The BJP hit back at the TMC MP and termed him a “liar”.

In his post on X, In-charge of BJP’s National Information and Technology Department, Amit Malviya said that will Asansol tolerate someone who defames and lies about Bhagwan Ram?

“Like Mamata Banerjee, TMC MP Shatrughan Sinha is also a liar. More than 50 lakh people visited Ayodhya for Bhagwan Ram’s darshan in the first month and the numbers have been only rising. It is projected than five crore devotees will visit Ayodhya annually, far more than what Mecca and Vatican receive. For Pran Pratistha also, people from all walks of life, rich and poor, all castes and denominations were present. Will Asansol tolerate someone who defames and lies about Bhagwan Ram?” he said.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)