The fate of 57 candidates, including that of the CPI(M) Politburo member and Secretary in West Bengal Mohd Salim, will be sealed on Tuesday in the third phase of elections in four Lok Sabha constituencies.
The four constituencies that will be going for polls on Tuesday include Maldaha-Uttar, Maldaha-Dakshin both in Malda District and Murshidabad and Jangipur in Murshidabad District.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Trinamool Congress candidates got elected from Murshidabad and Jangipur, while the BJP candidate emerged as the victor from Maldaha-Uttar and the Congress candidate got elected from Maldaha-Dakshin.
The third phase of polls for these four constituencies is being viewed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) as extremely critical from the security aspect.
Out of the four constituencies, Murshidabad and Jangipur in Murshidabad District are under the ECI’s scanner considering their history of poll-related violence and killings.
In the panchayat polls in West Bengal last year, the state witnessed the loss of as many as 55 lives, the majority of which were from Murshidabad District.
Insiders in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal said that 596 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) are in the state, out of which 406 companies will be deployed for poll-related security, while the remaining will be kept on reserve and for security of the strongrooms.
Again out of the 406 companies, 256 companies will be deployed at the polling booth in these four constituencies, while the remaining will be deployed as part of the Quick Response Teams (QRTs) as Jangipur has the maximum number of highly sensitive booths at 762 (41 per cent), followed by Murshidabad at 715 (37 per cent), Maldaha-Dakshin at 702 (40 per cent) and Maldaha-Uttar at 651 (36 per cent).
In Murshidabad, apart from Mohd Salim, the other main candidates are Trinamool Congress’ sitting Lok Sabha member Abu Taher Khan and BJP’s Gouri Shankar Ghosh.
At Murshidabad, the state Congress President Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had been actively campaigning for Salim to ensure consolidation of dedicated Congress and Left Front voters in his support.
The comfort factor for the Trinamool Congress’ sitting MP from Jangipur, Khalilur Rahaman is that this particular constituency is considered as one of the safest seats for the ruling party in terms of election results in 2019 and the 2021 Assembly polls.
His closest contestants are the Congress’ Mortaza Hossain and the BJP’s Dhananjay Ghosh.
For Isha Khan Chowdhury, the Congress candidate from Maldaha-Dakshin, it is a matter of prestige to retain the seat for his party, as the outgoing Congress MP is his father Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury.
His closest rivals are Trinamool Congress’ Shahnawaz Ali Raihan, a green horn in politics and BJP’s Sreerupa Mitra Chaudhury, who is currently the party Legislator from English Bazar, one of the seven Assembly constituencies under the Maldaha-Dakshin constituency.
Maldaha-Uttar, the second constituency from Malda District, this time is all set to witness a close three-cornered contest involving the BJP’s sitting Lok Sabha member from there Khagen Murmu, Trinamool Congress’ Prasun Banerjee, a former IPS officer and the Congress’ Mostaque Alam.
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