Naxalbari’s Journey From Mao To Modi: A Ground Report

Congress Needs Firefighting. Once Again. This Time In Delhi. Because Of ‘Outsiders’.

Congress workers in Delhi are protesting against the candidature of Kanhaiya Kumar from North East Delhi constituency and Udit Raj from North West Delhi constituency. They shouted slogans like “Baahari ummeedwaar nahi chalega” (outsider candidates not allowed).

Kanhaiya Kumar is originally from Bihar’s Begusarai and fought on CPIM’s ticket from there. Kumar lost to BJP’s Giriraj Singh by a margin of more than 4 lakh votes.

On Sunday, Deepak Babaria, in charge of the State Congress, convened a meeting of former MLAs and Ministers of North West Delhi at his residence on South Avenue. About 20-25 leaders were present in the meeting including Arvinder Singh Lovely, Devendra Yadav, Rajkumar Chauhan, Surendra Kumar, and Jayakishan.

Jayakishan, who had been an MLA four times from Sultanpuri, became emotional and wept in front of the senior leaders. He alluded to a conspiracy to end his political career by giving ticket to Udit Raj. Jaagran reported that Jayakishan took out some medicines from his pocket and placed it on the table saying that his son had gone into depression.

Congress is contesting only on 3 of Delhi's 7 Lok Sabha seats, while 4 have been given to its INDI Alliance partner Aam Aadmi Party.

Similar protests against Congress' Chandigarh candidate Manish Tewari were seen where over 50 leaders had resigned.

No Congress Candidate From Surat?

Congress candidate Nilesh Kumbhani's nomination for Surat Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat was rejected by the District Election Officer (DEO) Sourabh Pardhi due to alleged discrepancies in the signature of the proposers.

This comes after BJP candidate Mukesh Dalal's election agent had raised objections to the nomination forms of Kumbhani. 

The returning officer then granted the Congress candidate an opportunity to present his case on Sunday by presenting the supporters before the election officials.

But when Kumbhani asked them to appear at the election office, they agreed but they neither came nor picked up his calls as their phones were "switched off". Instead, they filed an affidavit saying that the signatures on the form were not theirs.

The returning officer, after reviewing the affidavits and evidence, deemed the signatures suspicious and rejected the nominations.

Moreover, nomination papers of the substitute Congress candidate Suresh Padsala have also been rejected on the same ground that the proposers denied that they signed the form.

In response, Kumbhani said that the party plans to challenge the decision by approaching the High Court and Supreme Court.

"Nomination forms of Dinesh Kumbhani and Suresh Padsala have been rejected after the four proposers said signatures on the forms were not theirs," said the Congress party's lawyer Babu Mangukiya.

So will the Surat Lok Sabha seat, which has anyway been BJP’s bastion, see the saffron party win uncontested?

Naxalbari’s Journey From Mao To Modi: A Ground Report

Naxalbari is a mid-sized village about 22 kilometres east of Siliguri. It gained notoriety in the late 1960s for cradling the ‘Maoist movement' to which it eventually lent its name. 

The red terrorists who killed thousands of people and had held, till a decade ago, large parts of central India to ransom are referred to as ‘Naxals’.

The state police feared to venture anywhere near Naxalbari which was declared a ‘liberated zone’ by red terrorists in 1967 and where the top ‘leaders’ like Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal, and Jangal Santhal safely hid.

It became a manufacturing hub of firearms and bombs used to kill and maim thousands of innocent people, including the policemen.

Here, ‘class enemies’ — petty traders, suspected informers, and ‘counter revolutionaries’ (a communist euphemism for opponents) — were held captive, brutally tortured, and executed.

Today, Naxalbari is a bustling town. Now a part of the Matigara-Naxalbari Assembly segment, it falls within the Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency.

Today, Naxalbari is awash with saffron. Flags with images of Hanuman and Shri Ram vie for space with BJP flags. There are no signs of the failed ‘revolution’ here and the people are determined to erase memories of the past. 

Today, Naxalbari has replaced the murderous cries of ‘Chairman Mao Zindabad’ and ‘death to bourgeois’ with ‘Jai Shree Ram’ and ‘BJP zindabad’ slogans.

The Left Front which came to power in 1977 had a tacit understanding with the Naxals, says Kiran Saiba (55), a local. She is a Bodo, one of the ten-odd Bodo families in Naxalbari.

Saiba recollects, “they did not indulge in crimes like killings that they used to earlier, but they still had Naxalbari under their grip”.

On Trinamool’s rule Saiba laments “we were so wrong” to think that things would ultimately change, “it is actually much worse now”.

So who will Saiba vote for this time? “Modi,” says Saiba unhesitatingly, “India needs Modi to get rid of all the corruption and to make the country strong”.

Read this ground report by Jaideep Mazumdar to understand how Naxalbari went from Mao to Modi: https://swarajyamag.com/west-bengal/from-mao-to-modi-the-fantastic-transformation-in-this-cradle-of-red-terror-a-ground-report

Keep following ElectionsHQ for regular updates on 2024 Lok Sabha Elections.

Until the next time,

Anmol N Jain