Where Party Has Withered Away

A tie-up with Congress would have yielded zilch, given the total absence of CPI(M) cadres in the Bengal countryside

- Dola Mitra

A standard ritual marks Madhu Mallick’s start of day. At the crack of dawn, the 37-year-old lights the clay stove, boils milk with water and puts tea-leaves into it. That would ready the piping-hot brew for his morning customers who begin arriving at the shop. It’s an open brick-and-cement structure at the far end of his mud hut in the police district of Jangipara in south-­central West Bengal. To be precise, on the side of the highway at the crossing of three villages: Mohanbati, Majhi­para and Gayapara, in Hooghly district. There, Madhu’s Teashop, according its owner, “is a silent witness” to the political change that swept through the state when, seven years ago, the mighty Communists faced defeat after ruling the state uninterruptedly for three-and-a-half decades.

Jangipara was one of those famed political constituencies during these long 34 years. Not once did it elect someone outside of the Left. Be the election for the civic body, state assembly or the country’s Parliament, the winner was always from the CPI(M) or one of its political partners. “Yes, earlier these parts were dominated by the Communists,” nods Mallick in agreement.

The local leaders and party workers, who sat on the wooden benches outside his stall, drank tea and chatted—all of them belonged to the Red brigade. Then, as if overnight, on a muggy May day in 2011, as new chief minister Mamata Banerjee took oath in Calcutta, the entire area turned green: the colour of the now-ruling party, Trinamool Congress.

According to locals, since then, in these past seven years, anyone would be hard put to locate a single CPI(M) supporter, forget leader, cadre or worker.