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The deserted CPM office in Purnea. Once the epicentre of Ajit Sarkar’s work, the premises is now a picture of neglect. A photograph of Sarkar hangs in one of the rooms of the party office.
| - Residents recollect war between Ajit Sarkar & Pappu Yadav |
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The deserted CPM office in Purnea. Once the epicentre of
Ajit Sarkar’s work, the premises is now a picture of neglect. A photograph of
Sarkar hangs in one of the rooms of the party office.
The office of the CPM near Jhanda Chowk used to hum with
activities during elections when CPM MLA Ajit Sarkar was alive.
Today, the office wears a deserted and dilapidated look. The
party has not even fielded a candidate from Purnea as most of its cadres, including
his wife and former MLA Madhavi Sarkar, have left it to join the CPI-ML (Liberation).
The office still flaunts photographs of the murdered MLA on
its walls. The lone inhabitant at this address is Anurag Kumar Singh, a student
at a local engineering college. “A couple of local CPM leaders come here once
or twice a week. But that is about all,” he said.
“This election is being contested with Pappu Yadav leaving
Purnea and Pappu Singh contesting as a BJP candidate. Ajit had strongly opposed
Pappu Yadav and even refused to share the stage with him. In the 1998 Lok Sabha
polls he refused to follow his party’s order to back Pappu Yadav from Purnea. Instead,
he supported Pappu Singh, then contesting on a Congress ticket. Ajit got
expelled from the party for his rebellion. The election saw Pappu Yadav’s
defeat from Purnea for the first time. The BJP candidate won. Ajitda was
murdered a few months after the results,” said Ibrahim Ahmad, who runs a
tailoring shop in the locality.
“Now that Pappu Yadav has left Purnea, it is ironical that
Ajitda is no longer here,” Ahmad said.
The CPM finds it hard to defend its decision not to field a
candidate. Ajit’s son Amit Sarkar, who had contested the Assembly polls from
Purnea, has left the country to rejoin his job in Austria.
The strong CPM unit that Ajit had set up disintegrated
after his death. In the very first Assembly election after Ajit’s death, his
widow Madhavi Sarkar contested on a CPI-ML (Liberation) ticket and brother
Pradeep Sarkar on a CPM ticket. Both lost. The party is not even a shadow of
what it was in Ajit’s time.
“We did not field a candidate from here for economic
reasons. Madhavi did not follow the party’s guidelines and was expelled. But we
have been fighting for justice for Ajit Sarkar. We petitioned the Supreme Court
against Pappu Yadav’s acquittal in the murder case. We hope the CBI will be
honest enough to fight the case in the apex court. But Ajit Sarkar’s legacy
lives on. If Pappu Yaddav had to leave Purnea it was because he knew he would
be unacceptable here after Ajitda’s murder,” said the CPM’s district head Sunil
Kumar Singh.
Ajit’s family faces a lot of anxiety. The family stays in
the late MLA’s Durgawari Mohalla house.
“We fail to understand how a murderer can move about freely
after remaining in jail for over a decade. It haunts the people of Purnea,”
said Tarun Bose, the slain MLA’s brother-in-law. Actor Amir Khan had raised the
same question in his Satyamev Jayate series recently. It has to be a systemic
failure, he had declared.
Bose declared that Pappu Yadav was a criminal and
patronised criminals as a politician. “Ajitda revealed several letters sent by
Pappu Yadav to the police, asking them to release people involved in all sorts
of criminal cases,” Bose said. If Purnea has become a safer place to live in
and fight elections from it is because Pappu Yadav was in jail for a decade. The
criminals left Purnea. But now that he is out, the danger of Purnea returning
to its dark days is real, Bose said. He dismissed charges that Ajit created
anarchy by forcefully occupying land. “Ajitda never took private land away from
anybody. He only occupied government and ceiling land and ensured that the
downtrodden made their homes there. Even today, people in these localities
swear by Ajitda”, Bose said.
Kanki is a tiny place on the southern outskirts of the
Kishanganj Lok Sabha constituency but isn’t a part of the seat. Located only 7km
from the main Kishanganj bazaar, on the Kishanganj-Purnea highway, it
is a part of Bengal’s Raiganj Lok Sabha seat.
It is from this seat that Union minister of state and
Congress candidate Deepa Das Munshi is seeking a re-election. She is locked in
a triangular contest with Trinamul’s
Pavitra Ranjan Das Munshi — also her husband Priya Ranjan
Das Munshi’s brother — and the Forward Bloc’s Mohammad Shameem.
When Kishanganj and Purnea (for that matter any part of
Bihar) are offering little photo opportunity, Kanki, around 400km northeast of Patna, is providing it
aplenty.
Deepa’s small party office in the tiny place offered The
Telegraph far more colour, enthusiasm, posters, banners and procession — typical
sights during an election.
It was hard to find proper election pictures while
travelling through the four Lok Sabha seats going to the polls on April 24 —
Bhagalpur, Banka, Purnea and Kishanganj. On the contrary, this place by the
highway offered a lot of colour in far less time. It gave opportunity for
pictures apt to communicate the colour of elections.
Many Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar
refused to give what Kanki gave so quickly and effortlessly. It is hard to make
out who are the candidates in Kishanganj, which is devoid of posters and
banners.
It is not known if Deepa will win Raiganj, but few can miss
her imposing presence in the banners, posters, slogans and processions at Kanki.
Congress’s Asrarul Haque might win the Kishanganj seat, but
he is hardly visible.
