Around 5,000 Bengalis out of the 2.5 lakh members of the community in faraway Surat will be travelling to their homes to cast their votes in the Assembly election scheduled for later this month.
The Surat unit of the BJP and the Surat Bengali Samaj have reportedly been working together for the last few months to identify voters sympathetic to the BJP to ensure none of the 5,000 votes go to any of the rival parties.
“There is a scope for change in Bengal. We have seen the difference that the BJP has brought in Gujarat. We want the same for our home state,” Basudeb Adhikari, a member of the Surat Bengali Samaj, was quoted as saying in at least two media reports.
Till now the Surat BJP and the Samaj have booked the people in four trains to help the voters reach their homes, per the report.
The first two trains will leave from Surat on April 18 and the remaining on April 24. Elections in Bengal will be held in two phases. In the first phase of polling will be held for 152 constituencies on April 23 and the remaining 144 constituencies will vote on April 29. The results will be declared on May 4.
There are four trains that connect Kolkata with the Gujarat city some 1,952 km away. The Porbandar-Shalimar Superfast Express is the fastest. It takes a little over 31 hours to cover a distance of 1,854 km. The slowest is the Porbandar-Santragachhi Kavi Guru Superfast Express, which covers 1,978 km in over 34 hours.
The other two trains are Ahmedabad-Howrah Superfast Express and the Okha-Shalimar Weekly Superfast Express.
Bengal's ruling party, the Trinamool, has been crying foul over this past week alleging inclusion of voters from neighbouring Bihar via Form-6, used to include new voters in the electoral rolls.
Trinamool leaders have claimed to have detected voters with dual voter ID cards in Bihar and Bengal, which has multiplied the apprehensions of the ruling party in Calcutta over the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.
The BJP and the Surat Bengali Samaj reportedly vetted applicants who had submitted documents to “prove” they are valid voters in Bengal. Applications of nearly 1,500 such voters were apparently declined.
Surat has been home to Bengali artisans and workers employed in gold, diamond-studded jewellery and zari work.
The bulk of Surat’s Bengali community is from the districts of Murshidabad, Hooghly, East and West Midnapores, Howrah and Sundarbans in the South 24-Parganas.
Most of the workers live in the Nagoriwad area near Surat’s Lalgate.
Higher wages in Gujarat’s jewellery and textile industry have attracted Bengali craftsmen for decades. The BJP hopes these workers will be able to influence their family members and neighbours to vote for the saffron party in this poll season.
