The Lok Sabha election in its fifth phase on May 6 will enter India’s oldest industrial region – the Hooghly industrial belt in West Bengal sprawling across the districts of Howrah, Hooghly and North 24 Parganas on both the banks of River Hooghly – that have virtually turned into a rust belt over the past few decades.
In this phase, the fate of 83 candidates contesting from these seven seats will be determined by 11,691,889 voters when they exercise their democratic franchise at 13,290 polling stations. The eastern state sends 42 members to the Lok Sabha and elections are being held in all the seven phases.
Read: All you need to know about Lok Sabha elections 2019
Of the constituencies going to the polls on May 6, four comprise parts of the Hooghly industrial belt, Srerampur, Howrah, Hooghly and Barrackpore, while Uluberia seat has the Uluberia industrial belt that developed over the past two decades.
Bangaon and Arambagh are rural constituencies.
The areas are strongholds of West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) party, which won all the seven seats in 2014, with the minimum winning margin of 1.46 lakh votes in Bangaon and a maximum winning margin of 3.46 lakh votes in Arambagh.
This year, all eyes will be on the Bangaon and Barrackpore Lok Sabha seats that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is confident of wresting from the TMC.
{{/usCountry}}This year, all eyes will be on the Bangaon and Barrackpore Lok Sabha seats that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is confident of wresting from the TMC.
{{/usCountry}}Read: All about West Bengal
In the Dalit refugee Matua community-dominated Bangaon, where citizenship screening exercise and the Citizenship Amendment Bill make the key issues, Prime minister Narendra Modi addressed a rally in February, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath in April and BJP president Amit Shah in May. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, too, has addressed three rallies at different parts of the constituency.
A split in the apex body of the Matua community has made the polls more interesting. While the TMC’s incumbent and candidate Mamata Thakur heads one faction of Matua Mahasangha, the BJP has fielded Shantanu Thakur, who heads the rival faction of the Mahasangha.
Read: Trinamool’s Prasun Banerjee will look to score a hattrick in Howrah
“The BJP is expected to give TMC a run for every vote at Bongaon and Barrackpore,” said political analyst Maidul Islam, who teaches at Kolkata’s Centre for Studies in Social Sciences.
“However, if the Left manages to retain most of its 2014 and 2016 (assembly election) vote share (near about 30%) in the industrial belt due to the presence of its trade unions, a divide in anti-TMC votes will reduce the BJP’s chances,” he added.
In Barrackpore, the TMC’s two-time MP and former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi is facing a tough challenge from Arjun Singh, a four-time TMC MLA who was one of Trivedi’s key vote managers. Singh quit the TMC in March and got the BJP’s nomination. Modi has campaigned for him, while the TMC is telling people that Trivedi won the best MP’s award in 2016.
Read: Srerampur has been under Trinamool since 2009
During the campaign, political blame game rented the air in the Hooghly industrial belt that started developing in the late 19th century following the opening of the Kolkata port and, by the time of Independence, was a vibrant region full of manufacturing units – heavy engineering, jute, textile and paper being the dominant ones.
“Policies of the successive Congress and BJP-led governments at the Centre and the Left’s militant trade unionism led to the decline of the industrial belt,” said TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee, who won from Srerampur in 2009 and 2014 and is seeking his third term.
The BJP’s Howrah candidate Rantidev Sengupta, on the other hand, blamed the inaction of successive state governments led by the Congress, the Left and the TMC.
Local sources pointed out that Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, the trade union wing of the BJP’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), significantly increased its influence in this industrial belt over the past five years.
Banerjee, from her rallies in Hooghly, Howrah and Uluberia, has blamed demonisation and ‘unplanned implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST)’ for loss of jobs in the small and medium scale industries.
On April 29, while campaigning in Serampore and Barrackpore constituencies, Modi said that the Centre took several measures to incentivise the jute industry and is also planning to reduce the use of plastic in packaging to give the jute industry another boost.
While the TMC has re-nominated all its incumbent MPs, the BJP has fielded a former journalist from Howrah, actor-turned-party leader Joy Banerjee from Uluberia, state unit’s women’s wing chief Locket Chatterjee from Hooghly, youth wing chief Debjit Sarkar from Serampore and a former Left leader from Arambagh.
The rest of the 17 seats will poll in the sixth and the seven phases of the Lok Sabha election. The votes will be counted on May 23 and results are expected on the same day.