Poll-bound Karimpur talks devpt, NRC

Nadia: Karimpur can’t be accessed by train. Residents of this assembly constituency in Nadia district have to travel 106km by bus to Ranaghat before they can take a train to Sealdah. In a tea stall in Karimpur, poor rail link is a talking point at a time when political parties are thinking the assembly bypoll campaign will solely revolve around NRC in this border district.

That at least was the impression before Durga Puja, when people across Nadia queued up in front of government offices and banks to remove anomalies in names and addresses and correct mismatch between voter ID and Aadhar cards. “There was a craze before Pujas. It has settled down now,” said Kalyani resident and its muncipality’s ward secretary Abir Adhikary, who was involved in the process. According to Adhikary, chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s constant TV messages on NRC might have reassured people.

Trinamool campaigners, however, are trying to play on the NRC scare. They are citing the instance of neighbouring Assam, where a large number of Hindus couldn’t make it to the final NRC list. Alongside, Trinamool MP Mahua Maitra is reaching out to households on the development work undertaken by the Trinamool government. BJP, however, has sprung a surprise by opening its campaign with development issues such as rail connectivity. “People in Karimpur have to travel 100km to catch a train,” said BJP’s Karimpur north president Mahadeb Sarkar.

BJP leader Mukul Roy is camping in Karimpur and sending out signals that refugees (Hindu refugees) need not worry about NRC because the Modi government will implement the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that proposes to provide citizenship to refugees.