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Caste a factor in 21 of 45 seats in Bengal’s fifth phase polling on Saturday
In north Bengal, of the 13 seats going to the polls in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Jalpaiguri districts, eight are reserved for SC candidates because the Rajbanshi community has a sizeable presence in this region
With 45 assembly segments in six districts going to the polls on Saturday, the fifth in the eight-phase polling in Bengal will witness the biggest electoral exercise amid rising Covid-19 cases and deaths.
Spread across six districts in north and south Bengal, 21 of the 45 seats are reserved for scheduled caste (SC) candidates.
In north Bengal, of the 13 seats going to the polls in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Jalpaiguri districts, eight are reserved for SC candidates because the Rajbanshi community has a sizeable presence in this region.
The BJP has emerged as a rising force because it won seven of the eight Lok Sabha seats in the entire north Bengal region in 2019. Over the past two years, the saffron camp and ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) tried to secure the support of the Rajbanshis. While chief minister Mamata Banerjee took administrative and political steps, BJP leaders, especially the party’s national president JP Nadda, made repeated trips to north Bengal.
Though it was in control of Jalpaiguri district in the plains since 2011, the TMC could not win even one of the six assembly constituencies in the hill districts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong in the last state polls held in 2016. The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) retained the three assembly seats of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or, CPI(M), wrested Siliguri while the Congress retained the Matigara-Naxalbari and Phasidewa seats.
This year, the TMC is contesting 291 of the state’s 294 seats, leaving the three hill seats to the two factions of the GJM that are supporting Banerjee in the other seats of north Bengal.
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At Dabgram-Phulbari in Jalpaiguri district, tourism minister Gautam Deb is pitted against the BJP’s Sikha Chatterjee, a councillor at Siliguri municipal corporation and the CPI(M)’s Dilip Singh, a former chairman of the same civic body. “People will vote for development,” Deb said on Thursday.
In the high-profile Siliguri seat, former city mayor Asok Bhattacharya, who served as Bengal’s urban development and municipal affairs minister for 20 years during the Left era, is contesting against BJP’s Shankar Ghosh, who was a prominent CPI(M) youth front leader till he switched sides before the polls.
In the south Bengal region, of the nine seats going to the polls in Nadia district, five are reserved for SC candidates. In these five, namely Krishnaganj, Ranaghat North-East, Ranaghat South, Kalyani and Haringhata, the Dalit Mamasudra voters are going to play a crucial role. The BJP won the Ranaghat Lok Sabha seat in 2019 mainly because of their support.
While touring Tehatta, located in another part of Nadia district, Union home minister Amit Shah on Friday visited a local temple and reminded voters at a rally that the BJP was committed to granting citizenship to the Matuas, who are a part of the bigger Namasudra community. The Matuas came to India from east Pakistan (now Bangladesh) as refuges after Independence and the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War to escape religious persecution.
“Can the TMC, Communists and Congress stop infiltration? They cannot because the infiltrators are their vote bank. Brothers of the Namasudra community deserve citizenship rights but Mamata Banerjee says they do not need it. We do not indulge in vote bank politics. The Prime Minister will set up a fund of ₹100 crore for the refugees. We will ensure their welfare,” Shah said at the rally.
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In East Burdwan district, which is considered the rice bowl of Bengal, five of the eight seats going to the polls are reserved for the SC community. At the reserved Khandaghosh seat, where the BJP’s Bijan Mondal is pitted against the TMC’s Nabin Chandra Bag, Nadda campaigned on Tuesday. The other reserved seats are Raina, Jamalpur, Kalna and Burdwan North, which are considered strongholds of the TMC.
On Friday, while addressing a rally in East Burdwan’s Ketugram, which goes to the polls on April 22, Nadda said, “This region is known for paddy and potato cultivation. But there are no warehouses and cold storage facilities. There is no irrigation facility either. Farmers have to pay from their pockets to hire irrigation pumps. Do you want a government like this?”
Closer to Kolkata, in the North 24 Parganas district, as many as 16 seats are going to the polls. Of these, only two are reserved for the SC community while one is reserved for scheduled tribes. However, unlike other districts, some of the candidates in the race belong to the high-profile category.
At Dum Dum, minister Bratya Basu, a noted thespian and playwright who has always made strong statements against the BJP, is contesting against the saffron camp’s Bimal Shankar Nanda, a professor making his debut in electoral politics.
At Barasat, actor-turned-politician Chiranjeet Chakraborty of the TMC is pitted against the BJP’s Sankar Chatterjee. Chakraborty won the seat twice since 2011 and has been campaigning extensively. The TMC is not in a comfortable position in Barasat because in terms of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the TMC was ahead of the BJP in Chakraborty’s assembly segment by only about 3,500 votes.
In North 24 Parganas district’s Rajarhat-Gopalpur constituency, TMC has fielded Aditi Munshi Chakraborty, a popular folk singer and wife of a local party leader, against Bengal BJP’s chief spokesman Samik Bhattacharya.
At Madhyamgram in the same district, the BJP has fielded Rajashree Rajbanshi, a debutant, against TMC’s two-time MLA Rathin Ghosh. Cleric Abbasuddin Siddiqui’s Indian Secular Front is also contesting the seat since the minority community has sizeable presence in parts of the constituency.
On Friday afternoon, Mamata Banerjee addressed at rally at Habra on North 24 Parganas.
“Narendra Modi is coming to Bengal for campaign and thousands of people from other states are coming with him. Many of them are infected by the coronavirus. They are staying in guest houses and hotels and infecting others,” said Banerjee.
