Voting began on Monday morning in 17 constituencies in the last of the five-phase Lok Sabha election in West Bengal to decide the fate of 188 candidates.
While the ruling Trinamool Congress would strive to retain all 14 of the 17 seats it had won in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, the Left Front’s efforts would be to wrest some among the 17 which it had lost last time.
An electorate of 2,55,75,744 is eligible to vote in the crucial round. Central paramilitary forces would be deployed at all hyper-critical booths, while arrangement has been made for web casting and videography.
The 17 Lok Sabha constituencies are Beharampore, Krishnagar, Ranaghat, Bongaon, Barrackpore, Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Diamond Harbour, Jadavpur, Kolkata (South), Kolkata (North), Tamluk, Contai and Ghatal.
Of the 17 constituencies, the CPI (M) had lost all the seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, while the CPI, SUCI and the Congress won one seat each. The ruling Trinamool Congress had won 14 in 2009, while it had won only one seat in the 2004 general election.
Prominent candidates in fray are TMC’s Sudip Bandyopadhyay in Kolkata North, Dinesh Trivedi in Barrackpore and Sougata Roy in Dum Dum, besides celebrities like Dipak Adhikari (Dev) in Ghatal and Tapas Paul in Krishnagar.
Trinamool Yuva President Abhishek Banerjee, nephew of Mamata Banerjee, is also a candidate to watch out for.
CPI (M)’s Subhasini Ali is fighting from the Barrackpore seat. BJP’s candidate magician P.C. Sorcar (Junior) is contesting in Barasat, WBPCC President Adhir Chowdhury in Berhampore.
Also in the fray are former finance minister Asim Dasgupta of the CPI (M) and former union minister Tapan Sikdar of the BJP in Dum Dum.
