Partition memories endure at India’s 'last rail outpost' in Bengal polls

Singhabad (Malda): For Balaram Mondal of Singhabad village in West Bengal's Maldaha assembly constituency, a land deed of his parents' property in Bangladesh's Alinagar is a prized possession.

The 75-year-old's parents crossed over to Singhabad on the Indian side of Bengal during Partition.

The border village has a railway station, often termed India's last station. The only traffic that now passes through what was a key rail link between Kolkata and Dhaka during the British Raj is goods trains carrying stone chips and poultry feed from India to Bangladesh.


Most people in this village are Hindus, whose families moved to India during Partition, many of them leaving behind their property in what was East Pakistan.

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"My father had returned to Alinagar after Bangladesh got liberated in 1971 with this deed. There was an option of selling the landed property as proposed by the government," Mondal told ET. "But the locals had captured the landed property. My father was intimidated, and he returned to India." Mondal does paddy farming while his son runs a tailoring shop near the railway station.

"The area was deserted when people came here after Partition...many Hindu refugees came to the Singhabad area," Mondal said. "We have been living here since Partition."

Most of the people in the village are Hindus with family roots in present-day Bangladesh. They have become Indian citizens long back and retained their names on the electoral rolls after the latest special intensive revision (SIR) of the list.

"Our names have not been deleted during Bengal SIR," said Mondal's son, 40-year-old Ujjwal.

"We are from the Chaimandal community. This is a reserved constituency," said the 40-year-old, as he watched his two daughters play in front of the tailoring shop.

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Maldaha, the assembly constituency, is reserved for scheduled castes. Locals said they have mostly supported the BJP in elections.

The BJP has mandated its sitting MLA, Gopal Chandra Saha, to retain the seat. His main rivals are Lipika Barman Ghosh of the Trinamool Congress, former MLA Bhupendra Nath Haldar of the Congress and CPI's Dipak Barman.

Voting in Maldaha is scheduled for April 23 in the first leg of the two-phase polling in the state.