Patra, 31, realises the importance of it. On the campaign trail in a Toto (as an e-rickshaw is called here locally), she says: “I am still in a daze. I never imagined this. Sometimes when the media asks me to say something, I am at a loss for words. But the mothers and sisters are with me.”

With more than two months of campaigning ahead of her (Basirhat votes on June 1), Patra has sent her young daughters to a relative’s home. Her husband Sandip Patra, employed as a labourer in Tamil Nadu, is back home to help her out. For a week, Patra says, all of them lived in an unknown location “for safety”.

Her own home, near Patrapara on the Sandeshkhali island – a semi-pucca two-room house, shared by Sandip and his elder brother Sanjib’s families – is swamped these days with relatives and a sprinkling of BJP workers. A TV set plays constantly in the background.

As she does the round of Sandeshkhali Block 2 with women supporters on foot and BJP leaders packed with her in the small Toto, stopping at temples to offer prayers, sweating in the already humid weather, Patra, who belongs to a Scheduled Caste, says: “I worked in other people’s homes to earn a living, but every day, there was fear. Now I travel village to village… and at least as a candidate, I have no fear.”

The events that set off this “change” began when Enforcement Directorate officials who had come to Sandeshkhali to raid the TMC’s since-suspended zilla parishad member strongman Sheikh Shahjahan, on January 5, were assaulted. As Shahjahan and his cronies remained on the run, on February 8, the women of the area including Patra came out on the streets, accusing local TMC leaders of sexual harassment, assault and land grabbing.

That same day, Patra lodged a complaint with police and later recorded her statement before a magistrate. With the TMC government under pressure, police lodged FIRs on the basis of Patra and another woman’s complaint, finally leading to the arrest of Shahjahan on February 29.

The BJP was quick to pick Patra out, as the face of its campaign against the TMC government’s “highhandedness”, and then as its candidate.

Patra says: “I am among the victims here, but I had the courage to stand up. I knew I had to do it (lodge a police complaint). What they did to me was wrong… The culprits have been arrested and now we are waiting for them to get punished.”

That the women of Sandeshkhali are with her in this “common fight” gives her confidence, she adds. “Don’t think that it’s only Rekha Patra fighting the election. I am the representative of all women of Sandeshkhali who were assaulted by ruling party goons… All of them are fighting this election.”

Does that include women belonging to the Muslim community, which is distrustful of the BJP campaign against Shahjahan – more than 60% of the people in the constituency belong to the minority community. “Why not?” Patra says. “They are also mothers, sisters or wives. They also have a mother, sister or wife… I believe they will stand by us.”

Basirhat used to be a base of the CPI, with previous winners including its senior leaders such as Indrajit Gupta, Manaranjan Sur and Ajay Chakraborty.

Patra adds that it wasn’t just the women who faced harassment. “My husband faced tremendous torture. TMC goons beat him up twice.”

A neighbour, Arijit Maity, who had also joined the protests against TMC leaders, says Patra set an example. “Many women agitated on February 8, but it was Rekha who was among the most vociferous. She was the one who stormed into the local police station to lodge a written complaint. She was the first.”

Moushumi Maity, 46, agrees they are behind her. “Rekha is our representative… This is not Rekha’s fight alone.”

Basirhat used to be a base of the CPI, with previous winners including its senior leaders such as Indrajit Gupta, Manaranjan Sur and Ajay Chakraborty. Since 2009, it has been won by the TMC – with 45.92% of the votes in 2009, followed by 38% in 2014 and 54.56% in 2019. The TMC has fielded its 2009 winner, Hazi Nurul Islam, this time.

While the CPI was the runner-up in 2009 and 2014, with 40.02% and 30.04% of the votes respectively, in 2019, the BJP came second, getting 30.12% of the votes.

Indicating the dirty fight ahead, the TMC Thursday released details showing that Patra had availed the Mamata Banerjee government’s health insurance scheme, Swasthya Sathi, in 2021. “Caught red-handed! @BJP4India’s MP candidate from Basirhat, Rekha Patra, plays the ultimate game of hypocrisy, enjoying the benefits of Smt @MamataOfficial’s schemes while aligning herself with Delhi’s JOMIDARS,” the party posted on X, adding that the next time he calls Patra, the PM should get tips on “our leader’s brainchild” and how it “surpasses the failed Ayushman Bharat scheme”.

Patra has lodged a complaint with the National Commission of Women and National Commission for Scheduled Castes on the matter, saying the TMC had shared her private details, calling it a violation of her right to privacy and of the SC/ST Act, besides “outraging of (her) modesty”.

With the BJP asking the Election Commission too to take note of the matter, the TMC has said the BJP should refrain from peddling “falsehoods” that benefits of schemes do not reach intended beneficiaries in Bengal.

On Friday, senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari attended her campaign rally, where Patra said: “They shared my personal details on social media. Had their sister or mother taken part in the polls, would they have done so?”

Speaking to The Indian Express, Sukumar Mahato, the TMC MLA from Sandeshkhali, however, repeats the party’s attack on Patra over the issue. “She has availed all the benefits of the schemes of Mamata Bannerjee… Swastha Sathi, Lakshmir Bhandar (for women heads of family)… Still she chose to stand as a BJP candidate.”

Ask her what her priority would be if she wins, Patra thinks for a while before saying: “We have to restore respect for women. And we have to ensure that people get jobs here and don’t have to go to other states like my husband.”

This is Sandip’s hope too, as of his brother Sanjib, a daily wager working in Kolkata. Sandip talks about the PM calling up Rekha; also meeting her on the sidelines of a public meeting held by him in Barasat on March 6.

“I hope I don’t have to go back to Tamil Nadu for work again,” he says.