Kolkata: As four Assembly seats of West Bengal go to the bypolls on Saturday, the primary cause of concern for the main political parties contesting the polls, has boiled down to the issues related to border.
The Assembly seats of Dinhata, Shantipur, Gosaba and Khardah are located in four different districts of the state, ranging from North to South Bengal. But, one common thing binds all of them. Border. The districts of CoochBehar, Nadia, South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas where these Assembly seats are located respectively, all have international borders with neighbouring Bangladesh.
So, be it the Union Home Ministry's decision to extend the operational limits of the Border Security Force (BSF) from 15kms to 50kms inside the Indian territory from the borders or the recent incidents of arson and assault on minorities in Bangladesh, the October 30 bypolls of West Bengal is hovering around the Indo-Bangla border.
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Among the four, the Assembly seat of Dinhata in CoochBehar had witnessed the closest contest in the April-May Assembly elections. BJP's Nisith Pramanik trounced Trinamool Congress' Udayan Guha by a mere 57 votes. Pramanik had won hands down on a BJP ticket in the 2019 general elections by a margin of 15,539 votes. He has chosen to retain his MP seat after being inducted as a minister-of-state for Home Affairs in the Union Government as the youngest minister at the age of 35-years. Thus, the bypoll.
Incidentally, Nisith Pramanik used to be an active worker of the Trinamool Congress youth wing till 2019 before switching over to the BJP. This time again, the saffron party is banking its hopes on a TMC turncoat, Ashok Mondal. The recent decision of the Home Ministry of expanding the limits of the BSF has made the most impact in CoochBehar, where nearly two thirds of the district have now come within the operational ambit of the central force.
Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo is going hammer and tongs against the BJP alleging that the Centre was bulldozing into the state's law and order affairs. CoochBehar, with a little over 74 per cent of Hindu population according to the 2011 Census report, has witnessed a high pitch campaign from both sides over the border issue. The contest could again get keen in Dinhata with the scales balanced quite precariously.
Down south, Shantipur in Nadia district has always been a bastion for the Matua sect. Jagannath Sarkar, the BJP MP of Shantipur had contested the Assembly polls earlier this year and had won. He too like Pramanik, has retained his MP post after being inducted in the Union Government in the July reshuffle, prompting the bypoll.
In the 2019 general elections, the BJP had bagged 53 per cent of votes in Shantipur, which slipped to 49 per cent in this year's Assembly elections. But, the saffron party still managed to retain Shantipur as 42 per cent of opposition votes got split between the Trinamool Congress and the CPI(M). The Left has been strong in this Assembly segment for quite some time, but not any more. The question for the BJP candidate in this bypoll is, can he retain the 15,887 winning margin of Sarkar? The Trinamool Congress local leadership is convinced of a turn of tables, even though the issue of CAA and NRC still plays a major role in the seat dominated by the Matua vote bank. TMC promises to pay back the BJP with their own coin – that of a double-engine government, with TMC ruling the state and Shantipur having a TMC MLA.
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A little further south is Gosaba in the Sunderbans where the bypolls have been necessitated due to the sudden demise of three-time Trinamool Congress legislator Jayanta Naskar. Situated in a district that shares a riverine border with Bangladesh, Gosaba is a seat on which the Trinamool poll managers can bank on. Out of the 31 Assembly seats in the district, the party had won 30 in the April-May polls, with one seat of Bhangar being bagged by the newly formed Indian Secular Front. Naskar had won Gosaba by a margin of 23,709 votes. It is now up to Subrata Mondal to ensure that Gosaba remains painted green and not saffron. Incidentally, the RSS is also very strong in the pockets of Gosaba and Joynagar. Though it might not be enough to bring smiles to the face of BJP candidate Palash Rana, yet he promises to put up a contest.
Finally, Khardah in North 24 Parganas, the largest district of the state and sharing the most porous borders with Bangladesh, has demography of 73.46 per cent Hindu population as per the 2011 records.
Heavily urbanised, yet infused with rural pockets, Khardah in the northern fringes of Kolkata will witness 8-time veteran legislator Sovandeb Chattopadhyay contesting on a Trinamool Congress ticket this bypoll, which was necessitated following the death of Kajal Sinha, the TMC candidate in the polls earlier this year. Sinha died of Covid-19 complications and was not there to see his win over BJP's Shilbhadra Dutta.
TMC had secured 49.04 per cent and a winning margin of 28,140 votes in the April-May elections. Khardah has seen candidates like Ashim Dasgupta and Amit Mitra winning successive elections and becoming the state's finance minister during the Left Front and the Trinamool Congress regime.
Sovandeb Chattopadhyay had vacated the Bhabanipur seat for Mamata Banerjee, which she won a month back after tasting defeat from Nandigram. Neither Dasgupta nor Mitra were residents of Khardah. Sovandeb Chattopadhyay has also travelled from south Kolkata to contest from the seat. If at all there is a contest in Khardah, it is more between Sovandeb and his outsider shadow.
The results are due on November 2.
