Calcutta, May 5 :    Calcutta, May 5:  Beleghata has a choice - between a 'goonda' and a gentleman. The 'goonda' lost an eye and five fingers fighting for the CPM in the seventies - or so he claims. He's now a councillor of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. The gentleman is a graduate from St Xavier's College and has a business management degree from Calcutta University. He's won from here thrice, and is now environment minister. Of course, gentleman Manab Mukherjee avoids calling Ajoy Sanyal - better known as Mantu - a goonda. 'Why should I call him an antisocial or goonda? Local people know Mantu Sanyal. They also know me. Let them compare between us and decide who they will elect,' says Manab. But others in the CPM don't pick their words as carefully. 'He (Manab) is a gentleman and Mantu is a goonda,' says former mayor Prasanta Chatterjee. Mantu himself is not ashamed of his past. He didn't even finish school. Now, he's Trinamul candidate from Beleghata. 'I know many people call me goonda and the CPM is trying to brand me an antisocial to retain their seat here.' He holds out his mutilated left hand. 'Look at my hand,' he says. 'I can't hold anything. I also lost an eye. But for what?' Mantu became a CPM member in 1970. He was part of the action squad. 'I used firearms on the instruction of CPM leaders. Naren Sen was in charge of the party's action squad in Calcutta at that time. I was the personal bodyguard of many important CPM leaders.' If the past was violent, the present is bitter. 'The CPM tried to defeat me in the corporation elections by branding me as an antisocial,' he says. But he won from Ward 34 by about 400 votes. Now he has a mission: take the blinkers off the people's eyes. 'This party (CPM),' he says, 'misguided the younger generation in the mid-seventies. About 1,200 youths - supporters of the CPM - lost their lives during the Naxalite movement and I believe they died for wrong policies adopted by the CPM leadership.' But it will be tough convincing people. This is Manab's backyard; he's won from here thrice, and now he's going around campaigning in jeans and T-shirt. He has his charm. He's a good orator, a crowd-puller. He's 44 and looks young and dynamic. But he's not taking any chances. He's busy. He doesn't even get time to trim his beard. Mantu, too, is not leaving any stone unturned. It's afternoon and the courtyard at his home has filled with his party activists waiting to take him on a campaign tour. His wife, Manju, a telephone operator at the Cholera Research Institute in Beleghata, is out on duty. Daughter Tisha, who appeared for her Higher Secondary examination this year, is preparing lunch for him. 'I am a paying guest in my own house,' jokes Mantu. 'I don't even know how my wife is managing the family without me.' He rushes out. There's no time even for lunch. His daughter's effort has been in vain. 'The CPM,' he says, 'will try to cast false votes in all the 151 booths in this seat. They have plans to cast 100 false votes in each booth. If we can prevent that in at least 50 booths, they will be in trouble this time.' But Beleghata has not let the CPM down since 1977. In 1996, Manab won by 9,659 votes. In 1991, it had been a higher margin - 15,781 votes. In the 1999 Lok Sabha polls, however, Trinamul was ahead of the CPM by 2,139 votes in this segment. This time, the Left will also have to reckon with Saibal Bhattacharjee of the PDS and BJP's Mohammad Oli. But no one is talking about them, not seriously. What matters here is who will triumph: 'goonda' or gentleman.