Kolkata (West Bengal) : The ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP, are locking horns in about four Assembly seats in West Bengal which witness byelections on July 10.
Keen contests among the parties are expected with the ruling Trinamool Congress, opposition BJP, and the Left Front candidates leaving no stone unturned to secure a win.
Among the four seats, the two seats of Bagdah and Ranaghat Dakshin are heavily dominated by Matua votes and the sect virtually decides the electoral outcome of these two seats.
The 2021 Assembly elections for Ranaghat Dakshin seat saw a BJP win in the name of Matua scion Mukut Mani Adhikari. Sources in the saffron party say Mukut expected his party to field him from the Ranaghat Lok Sabha constituency during the general elections earlier this year. But, BJP kept its faith in sitting party MP Jagannath Sarkar. A peeved Mukut switched to Trinamool Congress ahead of the elections and was promptly offered a ticket, which he lost.
Mukut has been yet again fielded from Ranaghat Dakshin Assembly seat and this time he faces Manoj Kumar Biswas of the BJP as his principal opponent. Arindam Biswas of the CPI(M) is also another opponent. Can Mukut stitch a win from the seat, which had rejected him only one and half months back? And that too from an Assembly segment where the Trinamool Congress trailed by around 36,000 votes in the general elections? The contest seems to be tough for Mukut Mani.
The Bagdah Assembly seat is part of the Bangaon Lok Sabha constituency, where the results are identical as that of Ranaghat. Here also, Biswajit Das of the BJP won in 2021, only to switch to TMC before the general elections. The Trinamool gave him a ticket from Bangaon Lok Sabha seat, where he lost to BJP’s sitting MP Shantanu Thakur.
Biswajit, however, is not as lucky as Mukut Mani. Though he has close links with the Matuas and Bagdah is considered as a Matua bastion, Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee had other plans. Not replicating the Ranaghat formula, Trinamool has fielded Madhuparna Thakur from this Assembly segment.
Madhuparna is the daughter of Mamata Bala Thakur, TMC’s Rajya Sabha MP, who is also the aunt of Shantanu Thakur. Madhuparna will be facing BJP’s Binay Kumar Biswas, also from the Matua community and Forward Bloc’s Gouraditya Biswas. Bagdah Assembly seat’s results will be closely watched by many.
Though the ruling Trinamool Congress did not implement its Ranaghat formula in toto in Bagdah, it never shied from doing so in the lone north Bengal seat of Raiganj in Uttar Dinajpur district.
The 2021 Assembly elections to the Raiganj seat was won by BJP’s Krishna Kalyani, who promptly jumped ship to the Trinamool Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year. The TMC offered him a ticket from Raiganj Lok Sabha seat, which Kalyani lost to BJP’s Kartick Paul. Though the defeat of Biswajit Das saw him replaced by a political greenhorn in the Bagdah seat, it was back to the Ranaghat formula for the Trinamool when it came to Raiganj. Krishna Kalyani is the TMC’s candidate for this bypoll and is pitted against BJP’s Manas Kumar Ghosh and Mohit Sengupta of the Congress.
Raiganj Assembly by-election is one of the most sought-after contests among the four seats going to the polls on July 10, not only because the triangular contest is promising to be a close one, but with both Kalyani and Manas contesting against their political mentor Mohit Sengupta, a two-time legislator from Raiganj and former civic body chairman.
Finally, from the heart of Kolkata, the Maniktala seat has been waiting for a legislator to represent the constituents in the state Assembly since 2022. The death of sitting MLA and minister in the Mamata Banerjee-cabinet Sadhan Pande on February 20, 2022 necessitated a bypoll, but could not be held due to a petition filed by Kalyan Chaubey, the BJP candidate whom Sadhan had defeated in the 2021 elections. Kalyan had alleged malpractices in the counting process and had sought a recount of votes. It was only after some strong words from the Supreme Court that Kalyan finally withdrew his election petition on April 29 this year, paving the way for the elections to the Maniktala Assembly seat.
The Trinamool Congress has fielded Sadhan’s widow Supti Pande from the seat while BJP has yet again reposed faith in Kalyan, who is not only a former footballer, but also the current AIFF president. The CPI(M) has fielded Rajib Majumdar from the seat. Rajib is a known face in the constituency but has a record of unsuccessfully contesting from Maniktala Assembly seat, earlier.
The recently concluded Lok Sabha polls have seen Trinamool’s Sudip Banerjee barely scraping through the Maniktala Assembly segment, which is a part of his Kolkata North Lok Sabha seat. The difference was just around 4,000 votes. The ruling party of Bengal will surely try to make sure that Supti wins Maniktala by a convincing margin. The only lookout could be the internal bickering of TMC.
All eyes are on July 13, when the votes will be counted.
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