TMC fielded candidate miles ahead of Opposition in Shyampur

The apathy of the erstwhile Left Front government in undertaking development work, fielding of candidates from outside by the Oppositions and development of the area in the past four and a half years are the factors that kept the Trinamool Congress candidate from Shyampur Assembly constituency in Howrah much ahead of others not only in winning the election but to increase the margin of votes.

The three-time Trinamool Congress MLA from Shyampur Assembly seat, Kalipada Mondal is expecting a clean sweep this time as well. In 2011, he had won the election by receiving 99,501 votes while his nearest competitor Minati Pramanik of Forward Bloc had received 64,882 votes in her favour. The election here is scheduled on April 25.

Mondal is a local leader and popular for being with people in any emergency at any time of a day. People in the area told the Millennium Post that there was no such occasion when a person had given a call to Mondal seeking any sort of help and he had not extended his help. Even in the wee hours he went out to meet people after knowing that a member of their family was seriously ill and needed assistance.

Instead of saying no to anyone’s face in worst cases, when certain work is not under his capacity and needed attention of higher authorities, he fights till end to get the work done for the benefit of common people.

“This attitude of the MLA has helped to bring a sea change in Shyampur, which is situated at the tail end of Howrah district. He had helped the state government in fulfilling the dreams of the people here by setting up the technical college,” said Manish Chatterjee, a local resident.

Murari Mohan Manna the Congress MLA from the seat in 1962 had handed over a 32 bigha plot to the government to set up a technical college. Foundation stone was also laid during the Congress government. Later the Left Front government had not shown any interest in setting up the college as the land was handed over by the Congress MLA, local people alleged. Instead steps were taken to divide the plot among sharecroppers.

Despite being the MLA since 2001, Mondal had failed despite repeated attempts to set up the college as the government then was run by the Left Front. Soon after the change of guard in the state in 2011, Mondal had settled the matter with the sharecroppers and approached the state government with the proposal of setting up the college there. Without wasting anytime, decision was taken to bring up the college there. The construction work of the college is complete and the training courses are expected to start from June.

Mondal said the college of which the people had dreamt of for decades came true when the Trinamool Congress government’s time came. Moreover, 168 km roads only in Shyampur Assembly constituency have been constructed in the past four and a half years besides solving the problems of sufficient supply of safe drinking water and flood have been taken care of. “Thus I am confident of my win,” Mondal said. Moreover, Congress candidate Amitabha Chakroborty and BJP’s Mousumi Biswas are from outside and it came as an advantage for Trinamool Congress in the assembly constituency.