KOLKATA: Hooghly will see the most eye-catching contest as actor and game show hostess Rachana Banerjee of the TMC is pitted against her former tinsel town colleague and BJP MP Locket Chatterjee.
Some of the most eye-catching contests in West Bengal will be seen in the fifth and sixth phases of Lok Sabha elections to be held on May 20 and May 25.
Heavyweights in politics and from tinsel town will vie for the honours on polling day. While Hooghly and Srirampur will vote on May 20, Ghatal and Medinipure will vote on May 25.
HOOGHLY
The verdant district and Lok Sabha constituency of Hooghly will see the most eye-catching contest as Mamata Banerjee’s inspired choice of actor and game show hostess Rachana Banerjee will pit her telegenic appeal against her former tinsel town colleague and BJP MP Locket Chatterjee.
In 2019, Locket Chatterjee, then a fledgling in electoral politics riding a Modi wave in which the BJP had bagged 18 seats out of the state’s 42 as against the Trinamool’s 22, managed to wrest the seat from the Trinamool Congress’ two-term MP Ratna De Nag. Locket Chatterjee secured 46% of the votes and won with a 73,000 margin However, in the 2021 Assembly elections, the Trinamool Congress won all the seven seats comfortably. Locket herself lost to the Trinamool’s Asit Majumdar by over 18,000 votes in the Chuchura Assembly segment of the Hooghly Lok Sabha seat.
The main significance of this Lok Sabha constituency is that it contains Singur, the ill-fated site of the aborted Tata Nano factory which was uprooted due to Mamata Banerjee’s protests against forcible land acquisition. Its overnight transplantation in Sanand in Gujarat, thanks to the proactive approach of the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, played a huge role in burnishing Modi’s image as an industry friendly go-getter and cementing Mamata’s role as a destroyer of the dreams of industrialisation.
Scheduled Castes and Tribes constitute about 35% of the voters while the Muslim voters are less (at 14.6%), than the state average of about 30%.
However, the fact that rural voters constitute 58% of the total voters and 50% are women voters, inspired Mamata Banerjee to pit greenhorn Rachana Banerjee against the BJP’s Locket Chatterjee. Rachana Banerjee is a 1990s star in Bengali and Oriya films whose popularity soared as she transitioned to the small screen as the anchor of the reality TV show “Didi No. 1” on a Bengali channel.
Mamata is hoping that Rachana Banerjee’s persona as an empathetic TV show host will garner women votes in this agrarian seat. While voters complain that the BJP’s Locket Chatterjee was not available to voters in the past five years, Locket claims that she has nurtured her constituency despite her other responsibilities in Parliament and participating in state-wide protests against Mamata Banerjee.
Locket Chatterjee, who had the Prime Minister and the Home Minister address campaign rallies in her support, has been talking of the wide-spread education scam for which two prominent Trinamool Congress leaders from the district are in CBI and ED custody. She is also pillorying Mamata Banerjee for turning Bengal into an “industrial graveyard” and is banking on Modi’s guarantee to see her through.
However, Rachana Banerjee is unfazed. “Now that I have taken up the responsibility, I am giving my 100%. It is tough but not impossible,” Rachana told The Sunday Guardian. “I am very happy with the response I am getting. Everyone is welcoming me with open arms,” she said. She is drawing crowds wherever she goes seeking votes.
She and her party supremo Mamata Banerjee are hoping that the selfies that the hordes of rural women are taking with the tele-star will transform into votes on May 20 polling day.
MEDINIPUR
Another star-dust laden contest is in Medinipure from where Trinamool has fielded another television actress June Maliah against dress designer-turned-firebrand BJP woman leader and Asansol MLA Agnimitra Paul. Biplab Bhatta, the Left candidate, is hoping to upset the applecart on May 25 with the support of the Left-Congress supporters.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Medinipur witnessed a fiercely contested battle. This constituency witnessed an 84.13% voter turnout and the BJP candidate, its former state president Dilip Ghosh won with a victory margin of 88,952 votes, securing 685,433 votes. He defeated Manas Ranjan Bhuinya of the Trinamool Congress, who got 596,481 votes.
This Lok Sabha elections, the BJP, for inexplicable reasons, chose to shift Dilip Ghosh to a shaky Bardhaman-Durgapur seat to fight against the Trinamool Congress’ candidate and former World Cup winning cricketer Kirti Azad.
Loud whispers say that Dilip Ghosh’s transfer was due to the BJP’s internal state-level politics even though Ghosh, during his presidency, was instrumental in making BJP a credible Opposition face due to his pugnacious nature.
Agnimitra Paul is the BJP’s state Mahila Morcha president. Paul, a Kolkata-based fashion designer and sitting Asansol Dakshin MLA, has had a meteoric rise in the BJP since she was inducted into the party, ironically by Ghosh, in March 2019. She has been elevated to the rank of party state general secretary.
“Medinipur was never on my radar. I was hoping for a ticket from Bardhaman-Durgapur since I have my roots there. But when Amit Shah ji asked me whether I would be comfortable with contesting from here, I accepted it without a question since I felt my seniors must have put thought before making such a decision.
“Now, I find they were correct since we have a solid organisation here with a large number of pro-Modi voters. Leaders here now realise I was Modi ji’s choice and all debates were automatically put to rest,” Paul told The Sunday Guardian.
In this Lok Sabha constituency, six of the seven Assembly seats are with the Trinamool, while only Kharagpur is with the BJP with another Bengali film actor Hiran (Hiranmoy Chattopadhyay) representing it.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP’s Ghosh won 48% of the votes while Trinamool’s Manas Bhuinya got 42%. The CPI’s Biplab Bhatta received 5 per of the votes.
For the Trinamool’s June Maliah, who has experienced the bitter taste of the party’s factional fights in the region, the job could be just as daunting as her rival from the BJP.
In this year’s elections, the Left’s Biplab Bhatta is hoping to get at least 7% votes from the Left-Congress supporters and this possibility makes this seat a cliff-hanger on June 4, results day.
GHATAL
Another star face-off is taking place in Ghatal, about 120 km from Kolkata, where two male actors of the Tollywood film industry are squaring off with each other.
Bengal’s numero uno actor Dev, or to give his full name Deepak Adhikari, is the incumbent two-term Trinamool MP who is trying to ward off a spirited challenge by his industry colleague Hiranmay Chattopadhyay, better known as Hiran, from the Bharatiya Janata Party. Dr Papiya Chakraborty from Indian National Congress represents the Left-Congress combine in the fray in this sub-division of Purba Medinipur district in the lower reaches of Chotanagpur plateau.
Ghatal is a low-lying catchment area of the Shilabati river and is hit by floods every year. Frustrated by the unfulfilled promises of politicians to solve the flood problem, almost all locals own a boat to move when Ghatal remains inundated under water even months after the monsoon.
Before every election, contestants say the nirvana lies in implementing “the Ghatal masterplan” which was first broached in 1989 and ask for support to make it possible. However, Dev has the unenviable record of just 13% parliamentary attendance in two terms and has spoken just two times in two terms.
This year, after showing initial reluctance, Dev agreed to contest after Mamata Banerjee “forced him to”.
“This (Ghatal Master plan implementation) is definitely a raging issue. I do not understand much about politics and that is in a way good for me. People understand this and I can also feel their pain. That is the reason I have decided to fight this election. And to implement it, if I have to take a rebirth, I will do that,” the two-time MP told The Sunday Guardian.
Hiran, who has been the MLA of Kharagpur, says: “He (Dev) himself is saying that he needs a rebirth to do the work which he could not do in 10 years. In this constituency, the money given by the Centre has been embezzled by creating fake job cards.” Hiran also levels charges of widespread corruption against Dev.
The BJP candidate has promised the people of Ghatal two things—improved railway service and turning the constituency into a “gold hub” apart from implementing the “Ghatal Master Plan” to solve the flood problem.
In the 2019 general elections, Ghatal witnessed a fiercely contested battle. This constituency witnessed an 82.70% voter turnout. Dev won with a victory margin of 107,973 votes, defeating former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh of the BJP.
Though whispers in Trinamool ranks say Dev has been a disaster as a politician, Mamata Banerjee’s all-out support ensures that party leaders keep mum. Mamata has also been using Dev for his star-power at her own public meetings.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had in February this year announced that her Government would implement the Ghatal Master Plan without any help from the Central Government.
“Dev has told me about the Ghatal Master Plan. I have discussed the issue with the Chief Secretary and Irrigation Secretary. We are taking up the Ghatal Master Plan,” Banerjee had said.
Banerjee said that it would require a budget of Rs 1,250 crore for the Ghatal Master Plan and would end the woes of 17 lakh people.
SRIRAMPUR
Kalyan Banerjee, a senior lawyer, a maverick leader and a Mamata Banerjee confidant, is seeking a re-election from Srirampur for the fourth consecutive term when the constituency goes to polls on May 20. This time, the battle for political supremacy in this former Danish-turned-British colony, which lies in both Hooghly and Howrah districts is likely to go down to the wire.
Unlike previous polls, where the battle remained largely bipolar, Srirampur is bracing for a triangular contest in the ensuing elections, a feature that’s likely to add to Banerjee’s discomfiture in terms of a vote swing away from his kitty.
Banerjee is pitted against his former son-in-law and Supreme Court lawyer Kabir Shankar Bose of the BJP and the CPM’s young turk and JNU research scholar Dipsita Dhar.
Banerjee’s rough behaviour has rubbed many party colleagues, local MLAs and even other MPs the wrong way. However, Banerjee swats away all the dire predictions.
“My USP is that I am well known in national politics as one of the most prominent Opposition faces to Narendra Modi. The BJP is afraid of me,” he told The Sunday Guardian.
“There is no anti-incumbency in Bengal. People have their complete faith and trust in Mamata Banerjee,” he says with trademark confidence.
His former son-in-law and BJP candidate Kabir Shankar Bose highlights a host of issues plaguing the constituency, including workforce migration, unauthorised real estate developments along river banks, filling up water bodies and drinking water crisis in the rural belts. “Banerjee is blind to all these, and is rude and foul-mouthed. The people will surely give him a farewell this time,” he said.
Dipsita Dhar of the CPM too has launched a spirited campaign with the support of young party colleagues and local Congressmen. “Banerjee’s biggest contribution to India’s parliamentary history has been his Paglu dance on the hallowed steps of Parliament to mimic the Vice-President of our country. We are seeking accountability from the MP of 15 years about the projects or schemes he has implemented in his constituency,” says Dhar. “We are asking why so many jute mills have shut down in Srirampur and their plots converted to real estate projects when the industry is booming elsewhere. Why are workers of closed jute mills being denied their PFs and gratuity dues? We are asking whether the real estate condominiums that are being built on river banks are ecologically sustainable,” she said.
“People are waiting to teach him a lesson on May 20,” she says.