Who are the real patriots? CITU shows the way in Sahaganj. International debate on agricultural growth in W.B. A database CPI(M) builds up poll tempo A look at the West Bengal Scene

Even though the Lok Sabha polls are more than a month away in West Bengal, the Left Front has started the campaign in right earnest preferring to keep it in a low key in the initial stage. The Front's achievements, the panchayats' success, the discrimination that is meted out to the people by the Centre have all been highlighted on wall writings. Front candidates have made it a point to visit the houses of as many voters as possible in individual constituency. Of course the task is arduous as a Lok Sabha constituency comprising an average of seven Assembly segments has around 10 lakh voters.

But a new development in the political arena in the state is the intrusion of religion and violence by the BJP and the Trinamul Congress. For decades, we had been accustomed to reading stories from other states during election, which reported loss of human lives in political violence. West Bengal has always had peaceful elections. But the BJP aided by the Trinamul Congress has on the one hand been resorting to minorities baiting and on the other, spreading the Hindutva slogan in the sensitive areas.

This has obviously created additional burden on the state administration. Like the BJP, the Trinamul and the Congress too will go to any length to disturb peace in the state. The Trinamul leader, Ms. Mamata Banerjee in the past had been instrumental in unleashing statements leading to violence.

The constituencies of Dum Dum and Malda will corner the limelight again. In Malda the West Bengal Pradesh Congress president, Mr. Abu Barkat Ataul Ghani Khan Chowdhury has again been given the party's ticket to contest the poll. In 1998 despise physically incapacitated, he contested the Lok Sabha election and won it. He promised never to fight the election again even from Malda, which he claims to be his home constituency. After 1984 Mr. Khan Chowdhury has done nothing for the people of Malda because, since then he has never been made a minister in the Central cabinet. This time around, Mr. Khan Chowdhury has started telling people of Malda that he has been forced by his followers to file his nomination again. The Left Front government has done whatever is possible for the development of the district. But can Mr. Khan Chowdhury cajole his Malda voters into believing that he can deliver the goods to them?

Like the rest of the North Bengal districts in Malda rail and road communication need to be improved. But all these twenty years or more Mr. Khan Chowdhury has never raised his voice in Lok Sabha for the development of Malda. Erosion of the Ganga is also a major problem in the district but he has thought it wise to keep mum on all issues affecting his district. Meanwhile the panchayat has done good work in the districts, bridges have been built and embankments raised. In the last 13 months Mr. Khan Chowdhury was available in Malda for a few days only. His absence in the flood-affected Malda last year has not gone unnoticed among the voters in the district nor has he raised his voice against the communal BJP, which has fielded a candidate here this time again.

In this district the CPI (M) candidate is Sailen Sarkar, who despite severe rains have made it a point to visit houses each day and his street corner meetings are being well attended.

The BJP candidate last time got a meagre 20% percent of the vote. The Left Front is reminding the electorate how the Congress joined the BJP in Englishbazar Municipality in an unprincipled alliance to corner power. Last time Ms. Mamata Banerjee asked people to vote for Mr. Khan Chowdhury. In the forthcoming election Ms. Banerjee is reported to be planning to address a meeting with the Prime Minister in support of the BJP candidate.

Mr. Khan Chowdhury is also feeling the pinch of shortage of workers as many of his party's workers have joined the Trinamul Congress. But the CPI (M) has well-oiled machinery which has been pressed into service for the party's candidate. The BJP's communal politics and the Congress's politics of opportunism have already put Sarkar in the campaign ahead of the Congress and the BJP. This advantage in favour of Sailen Sarkar will get more focussed in the days to come.

The other constituency that is attracting attention is Dum Dum. The surprise victory of the BJP State President Tapan Sikdar in the 1998 Lok Sabha election will obviously make it a key contest again. The constituency has for decades been a bastion of the Left, particularly the CPI (M). The Front has not left anything to chance. The Party's candidate Anil Bhattacharya is a major leader in the college teachers' movement in the State; the Left has now taken up in right earnest the task of repairing the damage it suffered in the last election.

Come to Dum Dum and you will find group or street corner meetings being held prominent places of the constituency. They are all campaigning for Bhattacharya. Posters are there alongwith graffiti. An aged woman may be found clarifying a point with the CPI (M) candidate.

The BJP's Mr. Tapan Sikdar is a candidate here again. It may appear from the lackluster campaign of the BJP that Mr. Sikdar is not taking any interest in the election. But it is just the opposite. Mr. Sikdar true to his party's colours is surreptitiously spreading the communal poison. The Viswa Hindu Parishad or RSS volunteers are conducting a campaign on behalf of the BJP in the colonies against the Muslims. Fund is being handed over by the RSS for doing Sani and other pujas among the Hindus and the Vaktir Bandhan festival is being overdone. There is no reason to believe that Mr. Sikdar's physical absence in the constituency is a sign of the BJP's slackening in the poll campaign in Dum Dum; rather it has taken a communal route to vitiate the whole election arena. The Left Front is aware of the BJP's machinations and it has been keeping a watch over the modus operandi of the BJP.

The Trinamul Congress has an alliance with the BJP. But the Trinamul leader Ms. Mamata Banerjee is not very eager to campaign in Mr. Sikdar's constituency. She may not be willing to clash for a berth in the central council of Minister with Mr. Sikdar if at all the BJP wins. Of course the prospects of victory for Mr. Sikdar are not as bright as he may think they are.