Mohammad Salim.
Credit: X/@salimdotcomrade
Politics in Domkal has always been stained with blood, just like it is in many other places in West Bengal, which has a long history of violence for votes. The tiny town in the Murshidabad Lok Sabha constituency of the State and the villages around it witnessed many pitched battles among the workers of the Congress, Trinamool Congress, and the Left Front.
But the 2024 parliamentary elections brought the Congress and the Left Front together to fight against the Trinamool Congress and ensure the victory of Mohammad Salim, the CPI(M) state secretary, who had been elected to the Lok Sabha twice earlier from other constituencies. After campaigning in scorching heat through the villages for hours, Salim took a break for lunch at the home of a party worker and spoke to DH’s Anirban Bhaumik
The CPI(M)’s understanding with the Congress did not work against the TMC in the assembly elections in 2021 when you also had the Indian Secular Front as your partner. Why do you think it will work in the Lok Sabha polls?
The workers and the supporters of the CPI(M) and the Congress are coming out in droves in every village or town I am going to campaign. They are coming out together.
They are participating in our rallies and padayatras together and in large numbers. The supporters of the CPI(M) and the Congress, in particular, and the people of West Bengal, in general, have now realised that they need to come together to vote out both the corrupt TMC government in the state and the communal regime of the BJP in the Centre.
This understanding between the CPI(M) and the Congress was not imposed from the top but came up from the bottom. That’s why it is working this time, and its success will be reflected in the poll results.
Why did you choose Murshidabad to contest the LS polls?
The party has decided that I should contest from Murshidabad because that was what the CPI(M) and the Congress workers as well as the disillusioned TMC supporters in the constituency wanted, local people of the constituency wanted.
What do you promise for Murshidabad?
We have to strive to regain the lost glory of Murshidabad, which had been a prosperous regional economic hub.
We need to build a transport link between Kakmari Char in India and Charghat in neighbouring Bangladesh to create facilities for international trade and establish a corridor linking Domkal and Baharampur in Murshidabad with Rajshahi of Bangladesh.
We need to work to expand rail connectivity in the area. We must create local employment opportunities to stop the migration of workers from Murshidabad. We have to work on improving and expanding irrigation facilities for the farmers, providing safe drinking water to people, and expanding educational and healthcare facilities.
Mamata Banerjee says that her TMC is still a part of the I.N.D.I.A. but it does not exist in West Bengal. What is your view? Will you still call I.N.D.I.A. a success?
She quit the I.N.D.I.A. bloc at the behest of the BJP only to save her nephew (TMC general secretary and Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee) from the central investigating agencies probing the allegations of corruption against him. That I.N.D.I.A. has been a success is proved by the fact that the BJP has lowered the pitch of its tall claim of ‘aab ki baar 400 paar”.
The old ploys of the BJP and the TMC of projecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the “Saviour of India” and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as the “Saviour of Bengal” would no longer work this time.
But, unlike in West Bengal, the CPI(M) and Congress are fighting hard against each other in Kerala. Why?
When I.N.D.I.A. came into existence, it was decided that the different political realities of different states had to be appreciated. When we talk about unity, we also have to take a diversified approach.
The political realities in Kerala are different from West Bengal or other states.
The Left Front could not win any Lok Sabha seat from West Bengal in 2019. It could not win any seat in the 2021 state assembly polls either. Why do you think your party will do well this time?
Those who wrote the epitaph of communism did it too early. We will disprove the theory that if the leftists were removed from power once, they could never come back.
We will do well both in the Lok Sabha elections as well as in the next West Bengal assembly elections in 2026.
People have now realized that when leftists are weakened, the corrupt and communal individuals and entities gain strength. Mamata Banerjee, at the behest of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), wanted to destroy the Left Front’s organisation in West Bengal.
But our comrades withstood the TMC’s onslaught over the past decade, despite facing violent attacks, being implicated in false cases, and being forced to leave homesteads. But we are now seeing a resurgence of the Left Front in the state, spearheaded by our young leaders, and guided by the veterans.