Political Machinations in Chopra: TMC's Dominance and Controversies

One of the main causes of Tajemul Islam, or JCB,'s rise, according to senior TMC functionaries of North Dinajpur district, is the desperation of some Trinamul Congress leaders, including local MLA Hamidul Rahaman, for total control of the Chopra Assembly segment by crushing the opposition.

TMC leaders in Chopra have spared no effort to seize total control of the Assembly segment, which is situated between the states of Bihar in the northwest and Nepal and Bangladesh in the north and south, at the interdistrict border of North Dinajpur and Darjeeling, since Mamata Banerjee took over as chief minister in 2011.

"These leaders, the local MLA among them, would frequently claim that they had'sanitized' Chopra and that no other political party would have the guts to build a base of support there. A top TMC politician headquartered in Raiganj who wished to remain anonymous said, "JCB and others like him enjoyed the patronage of some of our leaders, which gave them absolute power under such a policy of political hegemony."

Election after election showed that the TMC has total control over Chopra.

Chopra has remained a TMC stronghold despite the BJP winning the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat four times since 2009.

"In contrast to the other six seats where the BJP won commanding leads in the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat, the TMC received a lead in every election from Chopra (Congress in 2009, since it was TMC's ally at the time). This time, 92,131 votes separated Trinamool from the opposition, according to a political analyst.

When the Congress ran a candidate for the seat in 2009, it received 55,000 more votes than the BJP. TMC received leads of 23,000 and 49,000 votes in 2014 and 2019, respectively. Chopra had seen violence and even fatalities during the panchayat elections in Bengal in 2022. There are eight panchayats in the block with a combined membership of 245, a panchayat samiti with 24 seats, and three seats in the North Dinajpur Zilla Parishad.

"In the panchayat elections held last year, the TMC easily won all of these seats. There was more than one seat up for election. These findings demonstrate the party's hold over the block's voters, the observer continued.

District CPM leaders, emboldened by the viral video of a guy resembling Islam viciously caning a man and a woman, said that Islam, also known as JCB, was able to carry out such actions because he had the support of TMC leaders, who granted him a form of protection from any police action.

"TMC leaders use him and his associates to intimidate voters and engage in a variety of unethical acts during elections in order to guarantee that their party receives the majority of the vote." The district CPM secretary, Anwarul Haque, stated that "JCB, on the other hand, takes the return by extorting and torturing people to prove his power."

Rahaman, the local MLA, had almost encouraged the act on Sunday when the video clip went viral. He had added, to the chagrin of certain TMC leaders, "He (JCB) might have made a mistake but the woman was also at fault." Due to his comments, the district president Kanailal Agarwala served him with a show-cause notice on Tuesday, prompting the party leadership to take action.

"As the local representative, the MLA has been requested to respond within seven days as to why he was unable to prevent this kind of situation from occurring. He should also avoid saying anything that goes against the party line, according to a source.

Governor C V Ananda Bose, who had described the Chopra incident as "barbaric," arrived in Siliguri on Tuesday after traveling from Delhi. He did not visit Chopra or Fulbari, but he did meet a woman who had been tortured in Cooch Behar in the past.

"I'm prepared to greet the Chopra victims. He answered, "They can come see me, or I can come see them," and then he took off again for Delhi in the afternoon.