Kolkata: Earlier this year, when the election to the West Bengal Assembly was held in eight phases, all eyes were virtually trained on one seat – Nandigram. It was a battle royale of sorts where Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee was up against her one-time man Friday-now turned political adversary Suvendu Adhikari.
Adhikari was the son of the soil, hailing from adjacent Kanthi, in the same Purba Medinipur district. Mamata, on the other hand, was trying her luck in an uncharted territory. It was a keen contest between two political heavyweights. At the end, Suvendu had the last laugh. He now sits opposite Mamata in the Assembly as the Leader of Opposition.
Though Nandigram had hogged all limelight, another seat in the heart of Kolkata also went to the polls. The Assembly seat of Bhabanipur. Tucked in the South Kolkata Lok Sabha constituency, the seat had actually scripted Mamata Banerjee's ascendency to the hustings of Bengal, both in 2011 and 2016.
Yet again, Bhabanipur up for grabs. On September 30 when voters will queue up outside the polling booths, they will have a choice of three lawyers from three flagship parties – the Trinamool Congress, the BJP and the CPI(M).
Mamata had donned the lawyer's robe once when she argued for her party workers during a hearing of a case in the Bankshall court. But, that was years back. For the record, the West Bengal Chief Minister became a member of the High Court Bar after she obtained her legal graduation from Jogeshchandra Chowdhury College under the University of Calcutta, back in 1982.
Also read: Bhabanipur goes for triangular contest as BJP, CPI-M field candidates
Taking her head-on is yet another lawyer, Priyanka Tibrewal. Priyanka had contested the polls earlier this year from the Entally seat but was defeated by the Trinamool. This time, the lawyer who has been attending court in favour of those who have lost lives in the ongoing post-poll violence case and is also a member of the BJP's legal cell, is the saffron party's trump card against Mamata.
And finally, there is Srijib Biswas, a resident of the Bhabanipur and a practising lawyer, who is the candidate of CPI(M). The Left party, which had dominated the political spectrum of the state for 34 years and has been relegated to nought in this year's Assembly polls, decided to field a candidate after it became clear that the Congress, which traditionally used to contest from the Bhabanipur seat, backed out.
A literal cosmopolitan constituency, Bhabanipur is one such seat where Gujarati, Marwari and Sikh communities have a very strong presence along with those who have come in from neighbouring Bihar and settled here. The Bengalis are practically a borderline minority, thereby making the constituency a somewhat, mini-Bharat.
Since the first decade of the new millennium, the BJP had been making its presence felt in Bhabanipur and today, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation wards of 63, 70, 72 and 74 in the Bhabanipur Assembly segment are considered as BJP strongholds. So much so that in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Trinamool Congress saw its popularity graph taking a nosedive with the party trailing from the Bhabanipur Assembly segment. Ward number 73 of the Corporation also could not save the party from losing its face. The same ward which has Harish Chatterjee Street among other localities – the official address of Mamata Banerjee.
The Trinamool Congress supremo knows that things in Bhabanipur are not easy as they were in 2011 when she decimated the Left and had won by a whopping 49,936 votes from the seat. Her victory margin was an enviable 21.91 per cent with a voter turnout of around 63.78 per cent. But, in 2016 her winning margin was slashed by nearly half. With a 66.83 percent voter turnout, Mamata won by 25,301 votes, with a victory margin of 10.21 percent. Though in both cases she was up against the traditional opposition of Bengal, the Congress, Mamata knows what she is up against in the autumn of 2021.
Mamata knows that the political dynamics of Bengal have changed. Today she sits in the Assembly, which does not have a single Congress or Left Front member-a first in the history of the state. Defections happening steadily since she returned to power for the third straight time with an all-time high tally of 213 seats. From Mukul Roy to Biswajit Das, sitting BJP MLAs have switched sides, bolstering her numbers.
Also read: Mamata files nomination for Bhabanipur, TMC says will avenge Nandigram defeat
But, she knows that the Bhabanipur by-poll will not be just another election. With the Congress deciding to stay away from the polls and supporting Mamata, this by-poll could become the pedestal for a formal non-BJP alliance between the Trinamool Congress and the Congress.
Mamata has tasted big success with “Bangla nijer meye ke chaye” (Bengal wants its own daughter) slogan. She will be eager to renew it with a decent margin with the “Bhabanipur nijer ghorer meye kei chaye” (Bhabanipur only wants its own daughter) slogan ringing loud.
For the saffron brigade in Bengal, which is grappling with counter-defections, derailing its aspirations of a formidable opposition in the Assembly in the bud; it could be a prestige fight of sorts in Bhabanipur. The very Assembly constituency which houses the residences of Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Satyajit Ray among many others, Bhabanipur is waiting for its turn to play. Which way the “khela hobe” ball rolls, remains to be seen on October 3.
