(Top) Peace in red-wrapped Khejuri. (Below) Rush to collect essentials at a village mart in Maheshpur, Nandigram. Pictures by Pradip Sanyal

Nandigram, May 9: A small bridge divides Nandigram block I and Khejuri, but there is a world of difference between the two places.

One is a CPM bastion, secure in its strength.

The other is the “territory” armed CPM cadres had recap-tured in November, and are now determined to retain.

In the run-up to the rural polls, as hundreds of villagers in Nandigram block I flee their homes at night terrified of marauding CPM men, the residents of Khejuri, across the Tekhali bridge, sleep in peace.

While villages in Nandigram are scarred by violence, an easy calm prevails in Khejuri. For, the elections in Khejuri are a “non-issue”, with no Opposition in sight. The CPM has won 30 of the 99 panchayat seats in Khejuri block I uncontested. In block II, it has won 12 of the 96 seats without a fight.

Such is the party’s strength in Khejuri that no Opposition candidate dared to venture into the area to campaign.

“We are not concerned about Khejuri as we have already won the elections there and celebrations began a few days ago. But we have to win Nandigram I if we have to make a point. We are ready to lose anywhere but not here,” says a man sitting in the CPM office in Sherkhan Chowk.

Twelve CPM cadres were arrested from a Sherkhan Chowk brick kiln and a huge cache of arms and ammunition recovered after the March 14 police firing last year.

“We believe in peace, see how peaceful Khejuri is,” he says. “Fear of losing in Nandigram I has made our opponents insecure and they are creating problems.”

He, of course, refuses to discuss how armed CPM cadres on their motorcycles have been terrorising Opposition supporters across the bridge.

It is at this office that the cadres assemble before zooming across the bridge to begin their nights of terror.

In Khejuri, no one dares to utter a word against the CPM.

The few Bhoomi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee sympathisers in Khejuri do not dare raise their voice.

“We have no option but to vote for the CPM. This is how elections are won here,” says a 60-year-old resident of Sherkhan Chowk.

An atmosphere of suspicion pervades the area. “They (the CPM) have informers everywhere and will quiz us the moment you (reporters) leave to find out what we had been talking about,” he says.

Most villagers speak in hushed tones while others keep mum. CPM flags adorn every house and the writing on the wall is loud and clear.

Asked about the violence in Nandigram I, a resident of Tetultala in Khejuri says: “We know so many things that we do not want to know more.”

In Nandigram, there are spies because the divide between the two sides — the Pratirodh Committee and the CPM — is clear. Almost everyone knows who supports whom.

In Khejuri, most people don’t ask questions but they know exactly what is happening when they hear gunshots across the bridge at night.

Villagers who have been separated from their relatives on the other side do not visit them but talk on cellphones instead. “I have not been to Nandigram since November 2006. My sister stays in Sonachura, we speak over the phone,” says Anil Das of Sherkhan Chowk.

Election police

The government told the poll panel today that armed forces could be deployed only in 80 per cent of the booths for the May 11 polls.

However, there will be armed guards at all booths in Nandigram, which have been declared sensitive.

CPM state secretary Biman Bose wrote to the panel today, saying if city intellectuals went to Nandigram as indep- endent election observers, they should not be allowed to take police escorts.