Vote for Verdant

During interviews, the one question I always ask politicians who are contesting elections is what his or her position on the topic of ‘Nature’ is. I have noticed that this catches them a little off guard, possibly because unlike education or employment, environment is yet to be considered an issue of top priority as far as would be policy makers are concerned. Yes of course India too has signed onto the global goal of ‘Neto Zero by 2070’(when we aim to completely stop depending on fossil fuel and switch for good to green energy) and Union Budged 2026-27 has allocated to the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change �3,759.46 crore, which is an almost 10 percent increase from Financial Year 2025-26. But protection of nature is not something that is discussed with as much gusto by contestants in elections as say industry.

Yet when you do ask the question, the responses are usually reassuring and reflects a certain amount of thinking. I had asked Mamata Banerjee before she became chief minister, before the 2011 West Bengal Assembly elections, her plans as far as nature is concerned. “I would like to cover the city and its surroundings in greenery,” she had replied. Renowned environment activist Medha Patkar supported Didi when her party Trinamool backed the farmer’s agitation against industrialization in Singur and Nandigram, where a car factory and a chemical hub were to come up respectively. Today, after 15 years, though we are not exactly surrounded by forests it must be mentioned that an afforestation drive in the coastal regions including the Sunderbans is witnessing a boost in mangrove plantations.

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During an interview with BJP’s Swapan Dasgupta, who is contesting from the Rashbehari constituency in the ongoing Assembly elections, I asked if BJP’s plans of industrialization would come at the cost of agriculture and environment in the case of a BJP win. He replied, “I don’t think that in any part of India where the BJP is in power (the BJP is in power in about 20 states) there has been any complaint of any reckless destruction or spoiling of the environment. So I don’t think that there is that to worry about. In West Bengal there is a land issue. And at the sametime there are large number of factories which will never come into business because they have been out of commission for the past twenty or thirty years. But the land is valuable.But the land is blocked. So we have to probably consider some enabling legislation.” He also said, “It is not a question of ‘if ’ BJP comes to power but ‘when’.” Well, we will know tomorrow, when the results of the elections are scheduled to be out. The writer is Editor, Features