Bengal always has surprises up its sleeves during elections and circa 2024 is no different. During the first phase of elections held across 102 seats in the country traversing Kashmir to Kanyakumari, only three seats went to the polls in West Bengal and it was found that the state had topped the country in terms of maximum polling percentage. But, something else also happened.
In a never-heard-of scenario, the Trinamool Congress, which also rules the state, took out ‘victory’ rallies with respective candidates in the three seats of North Bengal which went to polls in the first phase!
Some say the move was a well planned strategy to boost the morale of party workers and supporters during the long polling process. Others opined it as a false sense of bravado, saying rallies like these by the Trinamool will only make their opposition, the BJP, more comfortable in a region, which is by and large considered a saffron wall in Bengal. Mamata Banerjee desperately wants to scale the wall this time.
Amid this charged up scenario, the second set of three North Bengal seats will go to the polls on April 26.
The Lok Sabha seats of Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat, all have their distinct identities, but with two common things. All three were won by the BJP in the 2019 elections and, Trinamool Congress has never tasted success from Darjeeling and Raiganj.
Darjeeling
The ‘Queen of Hills’ is probably one seat in Bengal, which the BJP calls ‘safe’ as it has been winning this seat since 2009. From Jaswant Singh in 2009 to SS Ahluwalia in 2014 to Raju Bista in 2019, though BJP has changed its candidate every time from this hill seat of Bengal, which also comprises portions of the Terrai foothills, but Darjeeling has reposed faith in saffron candidates.
Breaking away from their practice, the BJP has re-nominated Raju Bista this time. Neither Singh, nor Ahluwalia or Bista belonged to the Hills, but for Darjeeling it was never the candidate. Identity politics has always taken centrestage, with the protracted Gorkhaland issue emerging as the deciding factor along with the issue of including 11 Gorkha sub-tribes in the ST list.
BJP knows this too well and in its effort to ensure the Nepali-sepaking Gorkha votes of the Hills, it has always aligned with regional hill parties. This time also it has partnered with Subhas Ghising’s Gorkha National Liberation Front and has secured the support of another Hill satrap, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha chief Bimal Gurung. Former Gurung aide Binay Tamang has also extended his support to Bista. For this, Binay was ready to pay a price - he has been suspended by his party, the Congress, for six years.
Bista is pitted against Trinamool’s Gopal Lama and Munish Tamang of the Congress. Lama is enjoying the support of Bimal Gurung’s one-time deputy and the present chairman of Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM), Anit Thapa. Anit’s BGPM had won the June 2022 Gorkhaland Territorial Administration elections and the Kalimpong Assembly seat in the 2021 state elections.
The political landscape of Darjeeling only gets interesting with every bend along the winding hill roads. Ajay Edwards and his Hamro Party, which won the 2022 Darjeeling civic polls, is putting his weight behind Congress candidate Munish Tamang. And, sticking out like a thorn in Bista’s apparent Darjeeling boquet is Bishnu Prasad Sharma, the BJP MLA from Kurseong, who is contesting as an independent candidate, protesting against the nomination of an outsider to the seat by the BJP.
In the 2019 elections, BJP had secured 59.69% of votes, but slipped to 43.68% when the results of 2021 Assembly elections were declared. This time if BJP wins Darjeeling, it will be the first party to win the seat for four consecutive times.
Balurghat
It is a prestige fight for the BJP in Red land.
From 1977 to 2009, Balurghat seat had seen nothing but Left Front constituent Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) candidate representing in the lower house of the Parliament. And then came 2011 and along with it came the gust of Trinamool Congress. Not only was there a change at the hustings, the general elections of 2014 also saw Trinamool leaving a footprint in a Left-dominated seat like Balurghat. But, the honeymoon was short lived as the Modi-wave of 2019 found Sukanta Majumdar emerging victorious.
In two years, Sukanta was made BJP’s state president in September, 2021 by replacing Dilip Ghosh. BJP now has to ensure that Sukanta Majumdar wins from Balurghat, yet again.
But, Sukanta knows that his winning margin was around 33,000 votes and 45.02% of the mandate. Breathing on his neck was Arpita Ghosh of Trinamool Congress with 42.24% votes. The swing could sway anyway this time More so because, Sukanta will be facing state minister Biplab Mitra as the Trinamool candidate. Biplab is a turncoat of sorts as he had left Trinamool Congress in 2019 and joined BJP, only to switch back to TMC a year later. He won the 2021 Assembly election from Harirampur and went on to become a member of Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet.
Sukanta Majumdar will also face Joydeb Siddhanta of the RSP in the triangular contest of Balurghat.
For Biplab, the Trinamool COngress government’s flagship schemes like Laxmir Bhandar, a monthly stipend of Rs 1,000 for general category women and Rs1,200 for those belonging to SC/ST, could do wonders. The party’s allegations that the Centre has been withholding PM Awas and Rural Employment Guarantee funds, could also cut some ice.
But, will these be enough to counter BJP’s allegations of corruption in the TMC-led government or the works initiated by the Railways towards increasing connectivity from Balurghat to Kolkata and Siliguri, for which Sukanta is taking all credit? For Biplab Mitra and the Trinamool Congress, Balurghat could be a close race against the BJP.
Raiganj
Sandwiched between the Seemanchal region of Bihar and the Bangladesh border, Raiganj Lok Sabha seat is synonymous with political stalwarts like former union minister and Congress leader Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, CPI’s Subrata Mukherjee or that of Golam Yazdani of the Congress.
For the 2024 version of Raiganj seat, something else is hogging the limelight. All three prime contesting candidates from this seat are, turncoats.
BJP had won this seat in 2019, but even though Debashree Choudhury was made a minister of state at the Centre, the party could not risk re-nominating her from Raiganj. The anti-incumbency factor working against Debashree prompted the party to choose Kartik Pal, instead. Kartik was a Trinamool Congress leader, was the chairman of Kaliaganj civic body and had switched sides in 2020 along with Suvendu Adhikari.
The Trinamool, on the other hand, has chosen local businessman Krishna Kalyani as its candidate. Kalyani had won the 2021 Assembly elections from the Raiganj seat on a BJP ticket, but switched sides to join TMC before the year ended.
And finally, it is Ali Imran Ramz aka Victor. The 44-year-old leader has been in limelight since he won the Islampur bypoll in 2009 and amid the Mamata-gale of 2011, he was elected from Chakulia Assembly constituency on a Forward Bloc ticket. The two-time Forward Bloc, a Left Front constituent, MLA from Chakulia, Victor lost to Trinamool Congress in the 2021 elections and switched sides. This time he is the Congress candidate from Raiganj.
Like all other 41 Lok Sabha seats of Bengal, Raiganj also has its problems and issues. A seat with around 86.2% rural voters and 41.7% Muslim minority votes, a swing can always be expected. But, probably no other seat in the state is posing such intricate political arithmetic than Raiganj.
In 2019, this seat saw a keen contest between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress. Finally, BJP’s Debashree Chowdhury trumped TMC’s Kanhaiyalal Agarwal by a margin of 60,574 votes. Incidentally, Agarwal was a former Congress legislator from Islampur Assembly, but had switched sides and contested on a TMC ticket.
But, more interesting were the votes in the kitty of CPI(M) and Congress. Today’s INDIA alliance partners had contested the 2019 elections separately and CPI(M)’s Mohammed Salim had 1,83,039 votes, while Deepa Dasmunshi of Congress got 83,662 votes. Had the anti-BJP votes not split, Raiganj would have had a different story to tell. This time, the fight is a triangular one and the arithmetic will boil down to Victor and the number of votes he manages to corner. This figure could eventually be the decider for Raiganj.
A Urdu couplet can sum up the political game for the contesting turncoats of Raiganj. ‘Hamein toh apno ne loota; gairon mein kahan dum tha, Meri kashti wahan doobi; jahan pani kam tha’ (When did outsiders have the guts; I was robbed by my own, My boat sank at a place; where the water was shallow)
For results, the wait will be over on June 4.
