Jadavpur (Bengal): Repairs were on at the house of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s elder brother, Sisir Kumar Bose, when bike-borne men arrived and asked why the local ‘syndicate’ had not been designated supplier for the cement, bricks and other construction material. Workers at the Sarat Bose Road site told them that the house was Subhas Bose’s. The ‘syndicate’ men then asked for Subhas Bose himself to appear.This incident, which took place on July 3, 2017, is a tale often repeated to illustrate the ruling Trinamool Congress’s excesses. At the time in the house was Harvard University professor and Netaji’s grandnephew Sugata Bose. He was then the MP of the Jadavpur constituency. Sugata had said the casual threats and coercion were a local faction’s doing. His relative, Chandra Bose, who came to join the Bharatiya Janata Party, had said they were “reared by the TMC.”An older image showing a campaign poster with Sugata Bose and Mamata Banerjee’s faces on it. Photo: www.sugatabose.comSyndicates‘Syndicates’ rule the Jadavpur Lok Sabha constituency in and around Kolkata, and determine its politics. Jadavpur straddles great contrasts – affluent like Tollygunge and Golf Green, middle class like Garia, Sonarpur, Baruipur, and Narendrapur Town and poor, like Bhangor and Baruipur Purba. While Tollygunge is the hub of Bengali cinema, places like Sonarpur – even though serviced by the same civic body as the rest of Kolkata – can be mistaken for a lush village.The contrasts in the constituency are stark. One of the glitziest malls in Kolkata is surrounded by slums with no systematic access to drinking water, drainage and sanitation facilities.But one feature that unites the constituency is the number of real estate projects afoot and thus the total and local control that TMC leaders wield over such projects.Illustration: Pariplab ChakrabortyLike most things, ‘syndicate’ culture has its roots in unemployment. Youngsters, mostly men, buy construction material for cheap and sell them for an inflated cost. People have no choice but to buy it from them. In some places, like Bhangor, syndicates have developed themselves into middlemen who also buy and sell land. There, too coercion is involved.Bhangar-2 has 218 village panchayats, 30 block panchayats and three district council seats. Out of these, TMC recorded unopposed wins in 130 gram panchayat seats and 14 block panchayat seats (guaranteeing it the block panchayat chairman’s post). Nominations of 82 ISF and 19 CPI(M) panchayat member candidates were cancelled in this block alone, citing mistakes in their poll papers.The numbers in Bhangar-1 are even more stark. The opposition has fielded no candidates in any of the block panchayat and district council seats. Thus, the TMC grabbed all 27 block panchayat and two district council seats. Bhangar-1 has nine village panchayats with 223 panchayat member seats. Only two went to polls, the rest of the 221 seats went to the TMC uncontested. No other party has won unopposed from any of the seats here.As per the NHRC’s 2021 poll violence report, the most affected police districts are Baruipur, Basirhat, Barrackpore and Diamond Harbour, all in south Bengal.Muslim voteTwenty three percent of the constituency comprises Muslim and other religious minority voters.Bhangor, especially, has played host to significant violent politics in the constituency. The area was under the thumb of leaders like Arabul Islam and Sowkat Mollah, but a popular uprising in 2018 changed the lay of the land. Locals led a movement against the placing of power grids on agricultural land. In the last assembly elections in the area, the India Secular Front defeated TMC and won. But as many as seven people died in the area in the last panchayat elections. Islam – who is in jail – and Mollah are known to still have influence.Mansur Ali, a Bhangor resident who gives tuition classes and has a side business of selling books, is an ardent TMC supporter. Ali is no stranger to opposition BJP’s claims that the TMC “appeases” Muslim voters. But he too is surprised at some of the TMC government’s moves. “At a time it was a given that Muslim voters would vote for TMC. But some decisions are a surprise to us. Why did they remove the madrasa commission? Why have there been no appointments in madarasas?” he asks, while on his way to catch a bus out of Bhangor.Ali mentions that he has a nephew who has a Bachelor of Technology degree but is unable to get a job in his field. “He is a delivery worker,” he adds.Sulekha, Krishna Glass and Usha – companies which grew out of Jadavpur years ago – have petered out.Attention from MLAs and MPsJadavpur is known for dealing costly defeats to seasoned leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Somnath Chatterjee and former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in the Lok Sabha and assembly polls. Locals almost always make a candidate pay for absence. Allegations that Bose, the professor mentioned at the start of the piece, artiste Kabir Suman and outgoing MP Mimi Chakraborty have all ignored the constituency since election are rife.Left volunteers at the free canteen for labourers at Jadavpur. Photo: Joydeep SarkarThe TMC has nominated young leader Saayoni Ghosh from the constituency. A former student of Jadavpur University, Ghosh told The Wire that she was confident of a victory. Ghosh has been prolific in her campaigns which have touched down at temples and mazhars alike.The BJP’s candidate is the Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation’s chairman Anirban Ganguly. Seeing that refugees make up vast sections of the constituency, BJP has cited the Citizenship Amendment Act often in campaigns. But questions over its implementation cloud voters’ decisions.The syndicate culture has seeped into the world of cinema production as well. There is persistent rumour among workers in the film industry about the power wielded by TMC leader Arup Biswas’s brother Swaroop in allotting projects. While this is an open secret, multiple actors and directors that The Wire reached out to refused to be quoted confirming this.Actor Sabyasachi Chakraborty is one of the Left’s remaining prominent supporters. He tells The Wire that the fight is to bring back the Left so that cinema and other industries can kickstart in earnest and “people can live.”While the presence of progressive campuses has given Jadavpur the reputation of being a Left bastion for three decades, this is largely a myth. In the last 30 years, the Left won the only three times while Congress and then TMC won it six times.The Left has nominated youth leader Srijan Bhattacharya. There have been allegations of TMC workers meddling with Left campaigns – tearing apart their posters, stopping their rallies and so on. The Left has written to the Election Commission over this.Bhattacharya tells The Wire that TMC is scared of the power of the youth. “Fear and rigging is their only way,” he says.The Left’s workers’ canteen that has been on for over 1,500 days since the lockdown is a symbol of workers’s efforts in the area.In 2019, TMC got 47.91% votes in Jadavpur. BJP won 27.37% and the Left, 21.04%.Translated from the Bengali original by Soumashree Sarkar.