No alternative to Didi: Voters in Cooch Behar

Pramod Giri, HT, 23 Nov 2016, SILIGURI: The spectacular victory of TMC’s Partha Pratim Ray in the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha byelection is a testimony to the fact that voters here see no alternative to Mamata Banerjee.

Nripendra Nath of the Forward Bloc turned out to be a symbol of failed Left politics.

Though BJP candidate Hem Chandra Barman finished a poor second, the total number of votes the saffron party accumulated is a sign that it is becoming the main Opposition party in the district having its border with Bangladesh. Here, the demand for a separate state of Cooch Behar has been reverberating time and again. Ray, a 34-year-old school teacher, was handpicked by chief minister Mamata Banerjee and thus his selection ended the growing factionalism in the party.

The TMC’s victory, according to Ray himself and Mihir Goswami, the TMC MLA from Cooch Behar, is people’s verdict in favour of development works carried out by the state government under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee.

Goswami, who could not campaign actively like other district leaders due to his ill health, said: “Cooch Behar witnessed unprecedented development works since 2011 while common people have realised how the Left Front had kept the district deprived for 34 years.”

Rabindranath Ghosh, the party’s Cooch Behar district committee president, said, “Socio-economic uplift of rural folks particularly women, TMC’s regular contact with people and improvement in development infrastructures all put together paid off for the party.”

The election results have once again shown that the Left Front has lost its credibility. About the BJP’s performance, Ghosh who is also the North Bengal development minister, said, “The BJP got some emotional votes.”

The BJP was backed by the Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association (GCPA), which wants a separate Cooch Behar district. Tuesday’s result and the landslide victory of the TMC have once again proved that there is no taker for the GCPA’s cause, said Ghosh.

A senior TMC leader said, “It was Didi’s instruction to all the senior leaders in the district that they must deliver as she just wanted a spectacular victory.”