Mamata Banerjee looks to avenge Nandigram loss as BJP leans on ex-HC judge in Tamluk

The Nandigram bus stop is surrounded by CRPF jawans with guns drawn, as the electoral battle intensifies in West Bengal’s Tamluk constituency, three days ahead of polling in the sixth phase on May 25. Already, voters — like Sheikh Majid of Bhangabara — are saying that the “neck-and-neck” fight is not between candidates or parties, but a battle of prestige between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Suvendu Adhikari.

Along with Singur, Nandigram was Ground Zero of the 2007 grassroots movement against land acquisition, from where the Mamata Banerjee-led storm — which eventually uprooted the 34-year-long Left Front government in West Bengal — began. The Assembly segment is also where Mamata was defeated in the 2021 state elections by her aide-turned-enemy Suvendu Adhikari, at a time when her party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC), swept the polls.

On the ground, there are discordant voices. “The proposed rail wagon components manufacturing unit at Jellingham in Nandigram was abandoned after land acquisition. Suvendu changed his party and ditched the people. It is because of him that the CM is not focusing on this area’s development. If the BJP loses, it will be because of Adhikari,” says Mondal, a shopowner in Nandigram 1 block.

Many voters in Nandigram also feel religious polarisation will play a role. “There are 68,000 minority voters in the two blocks. In Nandigram 1, they could be the deciding factor in the TMC’s favour,” says a local businessman on condition of anonymity, while going on to claim that many Muslim families across Nandigram have joined the BJP.

Lying on a bed at her small house in Sonachura, Rinku Rani Mandal recalls how her husband was killed in 2007 at the beginning of the