Bhurri in Bengal and Hasanpur in Bihar are set cheek by jowl. Tilling their land for a living and catching fish in the nearby Mahananda, the two sets of villagers have almost everything in common.
They speak fluent Hindi, Bangla and Suryapuri — a local Hindi dialect — and celebrate Kali Puja as enthusiastically as Ramnavami and Chaiti Chhath.
And now they have two common expressions on their lips: “poriborton†(change) and “natun byabastha†(new order).
While Hasanpur’s 135 families have achieved the change they craved with Nitish Kumar replacing Lalu-Rabri after 15 years, Bhurri residents are seeking inspiration from their neighbours to try and end the 34 years of CPM rule in their state. They will vote in the Karandighi Assembly seat of North Dinajpur on April 18.
Abdul Karim, 30, of Hasanpur said: “We are happy with the change in Bihar. Our village now has a metal road connecting it to National Highway 34. We have also got the primary school reopened and upgraded into middle school.â€
Bhurri has a mud track and a small primary school squeezed into the cluster of thatch-and-mud homes.
“Our leaders seldom visit our village. We don’t have roads like Hasanpur has. The schoolhouse is too cramped unlike the spacious Hasanpur school. We will vote against the Forward Bloc’s Gokul Rai this time,†said Shibulal Das, 36, at Bhurri.
It isn’t as though Hasanpur is a hub of development and Bhurri neglected in every way. Hasanpur residents are envious of Bhurri’s regular power supply.
“We live in darkness because there is no electricity in our village while Bhurri glows after sunset,†said Moinuddin. “I hope Nitish Kumar will soon bring electricity to our village.â€
And here lies the difference. Moinuddin has confidence in his state’s government, but his Bhurri neighbours have none in theirs.
Isn’t it good that they have bulbs to light up their homes, electric fans to cool them in the summer, and pumps to water their land?
“But schools and roads are more urgent needs,†a young man says. “More than that, we are fed up with the same set of leaders. We want change.â€
Otherwise, the similarities between the two villages are striking. Both Bhurri in North Dinajpur and Hasanpur in Katihar depend on Dalkhola for access to a market.
Dalkhola is a 14-ward municipal town in North Dinajpur sandwiched between Bihar’s Purnea and Kishenganj districts. Almost equidistant from Calcutta and Patna, it has a big market for jute, grains and oilseeds. This is the season of maize, mustard and other oilseeds.
Local traders said the Dalkhola market was doing business worth Rs 25 crore a day in maize.
Karandighi has been a Forward Bloc bastion, with the party winning the previous five times.
“It won’t be any different this time. Some misguided youths who have not seen the slavery and loot in pre-1977 Bengal are talking about poriborton without realising what the so-called change will bring them,†said the district head of CPM youth wing DYFI.
The people may be talking about change, but they hardly talk about Mamata Banerjee. Historically, the Trinamul Congress has had little presence in north Bengal. “We wantporiborton more…. We don’t much care whether it’s Mamata or someone else,†a Bhurri resident said.
The CPM and Forward Bloc cadres are more visible going door to door than their Congress and Trinamul counterparts, who are seen mostly in their relatively better furnished offices in the townships.
The Left appears to have the odds stacked against it but is battling harder and more cohesively. For instance, the Congress won nine against the Left’s five seats in the 14-member board of Dalkhola municipality in 2008, but the CPM succeeded in luring three Congress members away. Now the board has a Left-backed chairperson.