Three-cornered contest in Jangipur assembly by-poll in Bengal

TMC has fielded Jakir Hossain, a former state minister who bagged the Jangipur assembly seat in 2016, for the by-poll. Sujit Das is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and Jane Alam Mian is that of RSP

Comprising the Jangipur municipality and the community blocks of Suti and Raghunathganj, which includes two gram panchayat areas, the Jangipur assembly seat in Bengal’s Murshidabad district is set to witness a triangular contest on Wednesday.

Jakir Hossain, a former state minister who bagged the Jangipur assembly seat in 2016, has been fielded again by the Trinamool Congress party (Photo Courtesy-Agency)

The seat is part of the Jangipur Lok Sabha constituency. Late former President Pranab Mukherjee won the Lok Sabha seat in 2004 and 2009. His son, Abhijit Mukherjee, who joined the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in July, represented the seat in parliament twice. The TMC wrested the Jangipur Lok Sabha seat in 2019.

TMC has fielded Jakir Hossain, a former state minister who bagged the Jangipur assembly seat in 2016, for the by-poll. Sujit Das is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and Jane Alam Mian is that of RSP.

Hossain could not be fielded for the March-April polls as he was critically injured on February 17 in a blast at a railway station along with 21 TMC workers. The National Investigation Agency, which probed the case and filed a charge sheet in August, said the attack was carried out to derail the local assembly poll.

Jangipur has been traditionally known as a Congress bastion. Congress has held the seat 11 times since 1951. It left the assembly segment for the RSP as part of an alliance for the March-April polls.

TMC lawmaker Abhishek Banerjee, who campaigned in Jangipur last week, said only chief minister Mamata Banerjee can combat the BJP and oust the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre in 2024. He said both Congress and TMC were confronting the BJP. “But only our party has proved that it can defeat the BJP. The Congress has failed to do so.”

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has alleged a secret TMC-BJP understanding. “At a time when Sonia Gandhi has called for unity of all opposition parties against the BJP, the chief minister and her nephew (Abhishek Banerjee) are making all efforts to sabotage this unity. The TMC is doing this because it has received favours from (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi.”

The Election Commission of India has installed security cameras in half of the 363 polling booths in Jangipur. Y Raghuvamshi, police superintendent of Jangipur, said 18 companies of central armed police forces have been deployed for the polling on Thursday.

In Murshidabad, the Muslim population (66.28 %) is the highest among all districts in Bengal.