Kolkata: The two upcoming bypolls in West Bengal — in the Uluberia Lok Sabha constituency and Noapara Assembly constituency — are likely to witness a direct contest between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Campaign for the two elections, scheduled to be held on Monday, ended on Saturday.
The TMC will look forward to retaining Uluberia, which it has been wining since 2009, and wresting Noapara from the Congress. The BJP, however, will try to increase its vote share in both the seats to keep up its momentum from the Sabang Assembly byelection where it increased its vote share by nearly 15% compared to the 2016 Assembly polls.
The Uluberia seat (in Howrah district), which fell vacant after the death of TMC MP Sultan Ahmed in September last year, is expected to be a litmus test for the BJP as it is the only party to have fielded a Hindu candidate in a constituency which has about 30% voters from the minority community.
The BJP leadership is keen on eating into TMC’s vote base by highlighting the communal clashes in Dhulagarh in 2016 and the alleged “atrocities” against the Hindus. “Everyone knows what happened to the Hindus in Dhulagarh and we highlighted it repeatedly in our campaign. If free and fair polls are held, the TMC’s vote share will take a hit in Uluberia,” BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha told The Hindu.
However, TMC secretary general and the state’s education minister Partha Chatterjee scoffed at the BJP’s allegations and said the people would give a “fitting reply” to them (the BJP). “Let the polls take place first. Once the results come out the BJP will realise that communal forces have no place in Bengal and people will not get fooled by their propaganda,” said Mr. Chatterjee.
As for the Noapara Assembly seat, the TMC is looking forward to the division of Opposition votes between the CPI-M and Congress. Pointing out that in the Assembly polls in 2016 the CPI-M had left the seat to its “alliance partner” Congress, TMC candidate Sunil Singh said, “This time they will eat into each other’s votes. Moreover, last time, Congress candidate Madhusudhan Ghosh beat us with a margin of just about 1%.”
The seat fell vacant after the death of Mr. Ghosh in April last year. In the 2016 elections, Mr. Ghosh won the seat with a vote share of 42.05% while TMC candidate Manju Basu came a close second, winning 41.47% of the votes.
The BJP recently suffered a major embarrassment when, soon after it announced the name of Ms. Basu as its candidate, she denied having any association with the party (the BJP). However, present BJP candidate Sandip Banerjee claimed that the incident will have no effect on the party’s prospects and if “people are allowed to cast their votes freely then the BJP will definitely win.”
