WEST BENGAL, WHICH gave the Trinamool Congress a resounding victory in the Lok Sabha polls, stands poised for yet another electoral battle. The state will witness byelections in four assembly constituencies on July 10.
On the face of it, the bypolls may seem like an ordinary affair. However, the underlying equations, especially the ones going against the Trinamool, have made them interesting. The BJP had won three of the four seats―Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin and Bagdah―in the 2021 assembly elections. The byelections are being held after the BJP’s sitting MLAs resigned and unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha polls on Trinamool tickets. Maniktala, the fourth seat, has been lying vacant since 2022 after the death of Trinamool MLA, Sadhan Pande.
Krishna Kalyani, who won from Raiganj on a BJP ticket, defected to the Trinamool in October 2021, but he kept serving as a legislator. He resigned the seat and contested the Lok Sabha polls from the Raiganj parliament seat, but lost to Kartick Paul of the BJP. It was a disastrous performance by Kalyani, who trailed by over 45,000 votes in his own assembly segment. Despite the loss, Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee has reposed her trust in him, nominating him for the byelections. As he returns to Raiganj, his main rival is Manas Kumar Ghosh of the BJP, who defected from the Trinamool last year.
“I am 100 per cent confident about winning,” said Kalyani. “During the Lok Sabha elections, there were many issues like Sandeshkhali, which worked against me. This time, I will beat the BJP with the same margin as their lead in the Lok Sabha polls.”
Ghosh said the people of Raiganj had already shown his rival what he deserved. He accused Kalyani of being part of a land mafia. “The Trinamool candidate is arrogant and did not respect the people’s mandate. He is a goon and people will defeat him again,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Congress, as part of its alliance with the left front, has fielded Mohit Sengupta for the seat.
The Ranaghat Dakshin assembly constituency has a similar story to tell. Sitting BJP legislator Mukut Mani Adhikari, a prominent Matua leader, switched over to the Trinamool and contested the Lok Sabha elections from the Ranaghat constituency. He lost to the BJP’s Jagannath Sarkar by over 1.8 lakh votes, conceding a lead of around 35,000 votes in his own assembly segment. He, too, has been renominated by the Trinamool and he will take on the BJP’s Manoj Kumar Biswas.
Adhikari said he lost the Lok Sabha polls because the Matua community supported the BJP. “This time, they will change their minds. They have understood that the BJP is only exploiting them in the name of citizenship,” said Adhikari. Several parts of Ranaghat Dakshin are dominated by Matuas and other refugees from Bangladesh. As a result, the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act is an important factor. Biswas said Adhikari won last time because of the BJP. “He cannot win anything on his own. The Matuas will show him his place once again,” he said. The Congress-left alliance has fielded Arindam Biswas from the seat.
The Matuas are expected to play a deciding role in the Bagdah assembly constituency as well. Bagdah was vacated by Biswajit Das, who won the seat in 2021 on a BJP ticket. He joined the Trinamool soon after. In the Lok Sabha polls, he lost from Bangaon against the BJP’s Shantanu Thakur, by a margin of over 70,000 votes. The Trinamool has put up Madhuparna Thakur, a young Matua candidate, for the bypolls. She is the daughter of Rajya Sabha MP Mamata Bala Thakur. Her father, the late Kapil Krishna Thakur, was a direct descendant of Harichand Thakur, the founder of the Matua sect.
The biggest challenge for the 25-year-old Madhuparna would be to overcome the influence of her cousin, Union Minister Shantanu Thakur, particularly because of his leadership role in the All India Matua Mahasangha, the most important socio-religious organisation of the community that now stands divided between the BJP and the Trinamool. The pro-Trinamool faction of the organisation is led by Mamata Bala Thakur.
The Congress-left alliance will be represented in Bagdah by Gouraditya Biswas of the All India Forward Bloc.
Maniktala, an urban constituency with a substantial non-Bengali population, has thrown up a different kind of challenge for the Trinamool. It is part of the Kolkata Uttar Lok Sabha seat, won by the party’s Sudip Bandyopadhyay. In 2021, the Trinamool won Maniktala with a margin of over 20,000 votes. But that lead came down to about 3,000 votes in the Lok Sabha polls.
The Trinamool has entrusted former MLA Sadhan Pande’s wife, Supti, with the task of retaining Maniktala with an emphatic margin. Interestingly, she shares a long and close friendship with Mamata. The BJP has fielded Kalyan Chaubey, who heads the All India Football Federation. Chaubey had contested in 2021 as well. He aims to capitalise on the anti-Trinamool sentiment among the urban voters in West Bengal, a trend that emerged prominently in the Lok Sabha polls.
The CPI(M) has nominated Kolkata district committee member Rajib Majumder for Maniktala.
The BJP has made law and order an important issue in the byelections. While the Lok Sabha polls were relatively peaceful, several incidents of violence were reported after the declaration of results on June 4. Recently, many cases of lynchings have also been reported, leading to at least five deaths. In one such case, an associate of Trinamool MLA Hamidul Rahman was arrested as a prime suspect.
These developments give the BJP an edge. The question now is whether the Trinamool can surmount the challenges and maintain the momentum from the Lok Sabha polls or will the BJP manage to make use of the seemingly favourable underlying equations.