The development card played by the Trinamool Congress, coupled with the assurance of a wage hike, failed to dent the BJP’s support base in the tea belt of north Bengal.
The BJP has secured all Assembly seats in the brew belt, barring Chopra in North Dinajpur district.
Tea garden workers and their families determine the results in around 12 Assembly seats spread across the districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and North Dinajpur. In the 2021 Assembly polls, the BJP had won most of the 12 seats while Trinamool had bagged Chopra and Malbazar.
Later, Trinamool won the Madarihat seat in Alipurduar in a bypoll.
“The tea population has again relied on the BJP and not Trinamool, despite different efforts by the state government to reach out to them through social welfare schemes and the assurance of a hike in the day wage,” said Soumen Nag, a social researcher based in Siliguri.
In the past few years, Trinamool provided land rights to tea workers, along with funds, for the construction of houses. The government revised the wages on an interim basis, built health centres and crèches for children and launched school buses for students.
“However, the TMC’s plan to provide land rights did not work in the hills. Also, the state’s policy to allow alternative use of tea garden land for tourism and ancillary activities left a considerable section of workers apprehensive of displacement. The BJP used both these issues during the election campaign,” said a tea planter in Siliguri.
In the campaign, BJP leaders, especially Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam, the largest tea-producing state of the country, repeatedly emphasised the slew of welfare measures taken for the tea workers of his state by his government and
the Centre.
Himanta’s reference to the recent hike in tea wages of Assam — the lowest wage in Assam is ₹258 now, while it is ₹250 in Bengal — and the assurance that the pay would be hiked in Bengal once the BJP was voted to power, helped the party at the hustings
He also said the Assam government had provided land rights to three lakh workers.
“But in Bengal, the Trinamool government wants to hand over tea estates to entrepreneurs for the construction of hotels and factories. Workers have the first right to the tea garden land, and the BJP will ensure that they get the rights,” he had said in public meetings.
In north Bengal, and particularly in the hills, the Trinamool government’s decision to provide tea estate land for tourism and other ancillary industries had led to protests, with a section of workers apprehending that they might be displaced from where they lived for generations.
“This is yet another major issue that left the tea workers and their families disenchanted with Trinamool,” said a political observer.