Will the BJP be able to retain the three Assembly seats, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagdah and Raiganj amidst the ruling Trinamul Congress’ electrifying victory, winning 29 out of 42 seats in the recently-held Lok Sabha (LS) polls in West Bengal?
Four Assembly seats, including the three constituencies and Maniktala in the state will go to polls on Wednesday. The BJP aims to leverage its general election leads in the three of these four seats to boost its morale, particularly at the backdrop of the saffron camp suffering a setback winning only 12 LS seats. In the 2019 LS polls, BJP had a phenomenal rise in the state winning 18 seats.
Advertisement
On the other hand, Trinamul Congress will try to capitalise on its spectacular success in the LS polls by winning all the four Assemblies this time.
Three of the four constituencies, Maniktala in Kolkata, Ranaghat Dakshin and Bagdah in North 24-Parganas, are in south Bengal while Raiganj is in North Dinajpur.
In 2021 Assembly elections, BJP had won Ranaghat Dakshin and Bagdah in south Bengal and Raiganj in the northern part of the state.
The ruling Trinamul Congress had bagged Maniktala seat but it became vacant after the former consumer affairs minister Sadhan Pandey died in 2022. The party has nominated Supti Pandey, late Sadhan Pandey’s wife, in Maniktala.
Three BJP MLAs, Krishna Kalyani from Raiganj, Biswajit Das from Bagdah and Mukut Mani Adhikari from Ranaghat Dakshin, had resigned as MLAs to contest LS polls on Trinamul Congress tickets.
Trinamul Congress has fielded Mr Kalyani, who lost to BJP’s Kartik Chandra Paul in the LS polls, again in the fray from Raiganj Assembly seat. Similarly, Mr Adhikari, who lost to BJP’s Jagannath Sarkar from Ranaghat LS constituency, is contesting again on Trinamul Congress ticket from Ranaghat Dakshin Assembly segment.
In Bagdah, a Matua-majority constituency, the TMC has fielded Madhuparna Thakur, a member of the Matua Thakurbari and daughter of its Rajya Sabha MP Mamatabala Thakur.
The BJP has fielded All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Kalyan Chaubey from Maniktala, Manoj Kumar Biswas from Ranaghat Dakshin, Binay Kumar Biswas from Bagdah and Manas Kumar Ghosh from Raiganj.
Mr Chaubey had unsuccessfully contested the Maniktala constituency in 2021.
“We are confident of winning all four Assembly seats. The people of Bengal have rejected the BJP in the last Lok Sabha polls,” said a senior leader of Trinamul Congress.
The CPM-led Left Front, maintaining its electoral understating with Congress, is contesting the by-election. The CPM has fielded Arindam Biswas from Ranaghat Dakshmin and Rajib Majumder from Maniktala.
Forward Bloc has nominated Gouraditya Biswas for Bagdah, while the Congress has selected Mohit Sengupta in Raiganj.
