West Bengal Polls: BJP's Bankura face, a daily wager’s wife

After having a limited presence in West Bengal for decades, the BJP has emerged as the ruling Trinamool Congress's main rival in the 2021 Assembly elections.

The party has fielded one of the poorest nominees in the poll for the Saltora Assembly seat in Bankura district. 30-year-old Chandana Bauri has three goats, three cows (one of them gifted by her parents), a mud house with no running water or toilet, and Rs 31,985 in cash and bank deposits, according to a report by The Indian Express.

Bauri's husband Sraban, who is a mason, earns about Rs 400 per day as a daily wager.

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According to the report, Bauri didn't even have a toilet. “We have to walk to the nearby field to relieve ourselves. Last year, we got the first installment of the (Pradhan Mantri) Awas Yojana-Gramin of Rs 60,000 and made two concrete rooms,” she said.

The senior district BJP member campaigns in the nearby areas with the slogan that “Trinamool is corrupt".

"It has not done any development work, pocketed all the money that Modiji sent for welfare schemes. From toilet to house schemes, people have to give cut money to Trinamool men,” she told the publication.

With the BJP's strength increasing in the state in the last few years, its leaders are upbeat that the party will end Mamata Banerjee's 10-year rule in the Assembly polls.

The 294 Assembly seats will go to the polls in eight phases beginning on March 27. The last day of polling is April 29 and the votes for the state will be counted on May 2.

(With PTI inputs)