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Chaturdihi: Neither Union home minister Amit Shah nor Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee kept their promises to Bibhishan Hansda.

“My daughter Rachana is 21 and has severe diabetes and thyroid. Amit Shah had said she would be taken to Delhi’s AIIMS [All India Institute of Medical Sciences] for treatment. Mamata Banerjee said that the state government would take all responsibility for her medical care. But neither of them did anything,” says Hansda.

Hansda is a daily-wage labourer at a brick kiln. He is a member of the Santhal tribal community and lives Chaturdihi village in Bankura 1 Block of Bankura district, in the impoverished Jangalmahal region of Bengal.

Bibhishan Hansda. Photo: Madhu Sudan Chatterjee.

Hansda has taken on more work as he has struggled to arrange for his daughter’s treatment. Deprived of proper nutrition and rest, he has now fallen gravely ill himself, and has an advanced kidney disease. He is no longer able to work.

At present, the sole earning member of the family is Hansda’s wife, Monika, who also works as a daily-wage labourer. She is engaged in manual labour at a road construction site at nearby Poyabagan. “On days when I find work, I earn around Rs 300. If there is no work, I return home empty-handed. This is how our life goes on,” she says.

The family of six needs Rs 10,000 just for the medicines of the father and daughter.

“But this was not how things were supposed to be,” Monika says. “We placed our trust in the home minister and chief minister. Now, no one even recognises us anymore. Our faith has been shattered.”

The Hansda’s house in Chaturdihi. Photo: Madhu Sudan Chatterjee.

So how exactly did a remote tribal family reach out to Amit Shah?

On November 5, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Amit Shah visited the Hansda home. With him were senior party leaders including Kailash Vijayvargiya, then state BJP president Dilip Ghosh, the now deceased Mukul Ray, as well as BJP members of parliament from Bankura and Bishnupur, Subash Sarkar and Soumitra Khan. Nearly a dozen........

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