Political heavyweights battle it out in fourth phase of elections in Bengal
The Hindu
West Bengal's fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections features political heavyweights, world cup-winning cricketers, and varied issues.
Eight Lok Sabha seats spread across five districts of West Bengal will go to polls under the fourth phase of elections scheduled for May 13. The constituencies located across south Bengal will see political heavyweights such as State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury contesting from Baharampur, Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders Mahua Moitra contesting from Krishnanagar and Shatrughan Sinha from Asansol respectively.
The BJP candidates in fray in the fourth phase include former State BJP president Dilip Ghosh from Bardhaman Durgapur, S.S. Ahluwalia from Asansol constituency and Jagannath Sarkar from the Ranagath seat. The polling on May 13 will also see two world cup-winning cricketers Yusuf Pathan and Kirti Azad testing the political pitch from Baharampur and Bardhaman Durgapur respectively. Both of them have been nominated by the TMC.
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The fourth phase will see a total of 75 candidates in the fray across these eight seats. The BJP leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have campaigned for BJP candidates Amrita Roy and Dilip Ghosh. Ms. Roy, who hails from the Krishnanagar Royal family, is the richest among them with total assets worth ₹554 crore declared in her election affidavit. She is contesting against TMC’s Mahua Moitra.
The Prime Minister and the Home Minister have also campaigned for Mr. Ghosh, who is pitted against the TMC’s Mr. Kirti Azad. Mr. Ghosh had won the last Lok Sabha polls from Medinipur but this time he was nominated to contest polls from Bardhaman Durgapur. The Baharampur Lok Sabha seat in Murshidabad district has thrown up a triangular contest with Mr. Chowdhury, a five-time MP defending his fiefdom, from TMC and BJP candidates.
Out of the eight seats, the TMC won four seats in 2019, the BJP has won three seats and the Congress one seat. After BJP MP from Asansol Babul Supriyo resigned and joined TMC, bypolls were held at Asansol. TMC candidate Shatrughan Sinha won the seat in 2022 with a margin of over two lakh votes. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had campaigned for the party candidates extensively across these five districts.
Birbhum, where both the seats were won by the TMC in 2019, has thrown up an interesting contest. At Birbhum, the BJP had to change its candidate at the eleventh hour. The candidature of BJP’s nominee Debasish Dhar was cancelled during the scrutiny and the BJP nominated Debtanu Bhattacharya to contest the polls from the seat. Mr. Bhattacharya is contesting against three-time TMC MP Satabadi Roy.
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