During her election campaign in Narayangarh in March, Mamata Banerjee told the people that she would hold her first meeting in area and eat “dal vada”, a delicious local product if they could defeat Misra.
As local people have kept their words, Trinamool supremo decided to visit the area to express her gratitude before her tour to Junglemahal scheduled on June 14.
Ghosh defeated Misra by 13, 589 votes. The people of the area supported Banerjee’s development projects and out of 19 seats in West Midnapore, TMC bagged all the seats except Kharagpur Sadar and Sabang where Dilip Ghosh, state BJP president and Manas Bhuniya of Congress were elected.
Narayangarh was a red bastion since CPI(M) came to power in 1977. Because of red terror unleashed by the CPI(M) common people had no other choice but to elect CPI(M) nominee.
In 2011, Surya Kanta Misra defeated Surya Kanta Addhya by 7,109 votes in 2011. But over the years there was massive erosion in party’s vote bank. The people got benefits of the development projects taken up by the state government. Banerjee gave a master stroke by nominating a fresh candidate.
But the alliance leaders failed to read the pulse of people. In one of the election meetings held by the alliance, Manas Bhuniya had declared that Misra would be the next Chief Minister of the state. The newspapers carried the picture of Bhuniya holding Misra’s hands. Supported by some newspapers with vested interest, even the leaders of the alliance including Misra started believing that it would come to power.
Both Misra and Adhir Chowdhury, state Congress president criticised Banerjee and Chowdhury went one step ahead and said that he would sent “dal vada” to Banerjee at her residence as she would not have no other work after May 19 when elections results would be out.
However, when results came out it was seen that TMC had secured a landslide victory by whitewashing
the opponent. Local people are jubilant when the news that Mamata Banerjee would visit them next Monday reached them on Friday afternoon.
The entire area is taking the shape of festival with the residents deciding to offer her a grand ovation. “We do not want anything. We want didi to come to our area and bless us,” said local TMC leaders.