Mamata's first roadshow in Bhabanipur by-polls cancelled due to waterlogging

The first roadshow in the current poll season was scheduled on Tuesday afternoon at Sudhir Bose Street adjacent to the minority-dominated Ekbalpur area in South Kolkata. However, the torrential rainfall since last Sunday night which resulted in massive waterlogging in that particular area played spoilsport.

Kolkata: Political developments in West Bengal since the last 72 hours made the situation perfectly ripe for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to appear in her first roadshow for the forthcoming Bhabanipur by-election scheduled on 30th September 2021. The first roadshow in the current poll season was scheduled on Tuesday afternoon at Sudhir Bose Street adjacent to the minority-dominated Ekbalpur area in South Kolkata.

The political developments in the state during the last 72 hours has kept the ruling Trinamool Congress on the front foot. On 16 September 2021, the singer-turned-politician and the BJP Lok Sabha member from Asansol Babul Supriyo joined Trinamool. On Monday evening, the BJP leadership suddenly dropped Dilip Ghosh as the party's State President in West Bengal and replaced him with the party's Lok Sabha member from Balurghat, Sukanta Majumdar. As Majumdar is a North Bengal focused leader, this last moment change is perceived to give Trinamool a campaign advantage in Bhabanipur by-polls.

In such a situation, the Chief Minister's first roadshow on Tuesday was expected to give an additional boost to the already high morale of the common Trinamool Congress workers. However, the torrential rainfall since last Sunday night which resulted in massive waterlogging in that particular area played spoilsport. As the area remained waterlogged since late Tuesday noon, her first roadshow of the season had to be cancelled.

The state's minister, Firhad Hakim gave his best efforts to keep the show on by arranging flushing out the water through pumps. In fact, on Tuesday morning he visited the spot and supervised the entire process. But all his efforts went in vain and ultimately the roadshow had to be cancelled. Instead, it has been decided that on Wednesday, Mamata Banerjee will conduct two roadshows, the first being at the same Sudhir Bose Street, where she was supposed to address on Tuesday and the second being at Chetla.

Bhabanipur, a post-delimitation assembly constituency, forked out of sections of the existing Chowringhee and the erstwhile Alipore constituencies, was traditionally a Congress-dominated belt before the birth of Trinamool Congress in 1998. Even during the peak of the Left Front rule, CPI(M) could hardly make any dent in the area. But after the creation of Trinamool Congress in 1998, Congress lost its base to Trinamool. So from all perspectives, Mamata Banerjee, in the forthcoming by-elections is way ahead of her nearest rival, Priyanka Tibrewal of BJP.

However, the only headache for Trinamool is the sharp increase in the number of non- Bengali voters in the Bhabanipur constituency during the last decade, the majority of which are perceived to be BJP supporters. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP candidate Tathagata Roy was defeated by Trinamool Congress' Subrata Bakshi from Bhabanipur, Kolkata.