Barring a brief period of two terms when Trinamool Congress ruled the seat from 1998 to 2004, the Barasat Lok Sabha constituency is a red bastion with the Forward Bloc on the winning spree since 1977.
This year, however, the Forward Bloc is in jittery since the people have grievances against the sitting FB MP, Subrata Bose for his apparent "careless" attitude towards the constituency going to poll on May 13, analysts said.
"Opposition allegations that Bose did not visit the constituency during his tenure should be seen in right perspective. He was sick and his family passed through a lot of turmoils," Sudin Chattopadhyay, FB candidate and an educationist, said.
In 2004, Subrata Bose bagged 520384 votes (45.13 per cent) and defeated TC candidate Ranjit Kumar Panja by only 12,160 votes. Prabir Banerjee of Congress got 61,014 votes.
"We expected Bose to be as helpful as his predecessors - Chitta Basu of FB and Ranjit Panja of TC. But he hardly came to help us," Sukhendu Ghosh, a resident here said.
This time Congress and TC have joined hands and their total votes in Barasat were more than the FB candidate. TC candidate Panja had won this seat in 1998 and 1999. BJP candidate Bratin Sengupta who was earlier a Rajya Sabha MP of CPI-M is likely to take away a good chunk of votes from the LF candidate.
{{/usCountry}}This time Congress and TC have joined hands and their total votes in Barasat were more than the FB candidate. TC candidate Panja had won this seat in 1998 and 1999. BJP candidate Bratin Sengupta who was earlier a Rajya Sabha MP of CPI-M is likely to take away a good chunk of votes from the LF candidate.
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