Lok Sabha polls: BJP eyes dominance in north Bengal; TMC aims to gain lost ground
The voting in three seats of Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat are underway, and these remain key constituencies for BJP to ensure their electoral domination in north Bengal
The ongoing second phase Lok Sabha election in West Bengal holds the key to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) total dominance in the northern part of the state and the Trinamool Congress’ (TMC) aspiration to gain ground in an area where historically, it has not been very strong.
The voting in three seats of Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat are underway, and these remain key constituencies for BJP to ensure their electoral domination in north Bengal.
From just one seat (Darjeeling) in 2014, the BJP went on to win all seven seats of north Bengal in 2019.
The BJP bagged 18 seats in Bengal in the last Lok Sabha polls, its highest tally so far in a state where the party never came to power.
While Darjeeling had been electing a BJP MP since 2004, BJP won the two other seats for the first time since 2019.
The BJP’s prime challenge is to retain the numerical majority in the seats of Raiganj and Balurght while the TMC is keen to dent BJP’s popularity in this region by winning a seat or two.
Of the seven assembly segments in Raiganj, the TMC has six—a factor that possibly gives the Bengal’s ruling party a ray of hope to revive its vote-bank, but it could be easier said than done.
Also Read:Lok Sabha elections: Voting under way in 3 seats in West Bengal; no violence reported
In Raiganj, the anti-BJP vote is split between TMC and the Congress-Left alliance which has a considerable presence in the region.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP bagged 40% of the popular votes while the TMC got a little more than 35% votes. The CPIM and the Congress, which had fought separately, bagged more than 20% of the votes.
In Balurghat, where BJP president Sukanta Mazumder is the candidate, the party had won by only 3% margin in 2019. The Opposition vote once again got split between TMC, Congress and RSP (a Left constituent).
“We hope to win at least two seats in north Bengal,” claimed a TMC leader.
However, a section of the party also feels that the absence of a state-wise alliance between Congress, Left and Trinamool—the three constituents in INDIA alliance—might prove to be an advantage for the BJP.
Traditionally, the Congress and the Left were strong in northern Bengal while TMC dominated the southern areas.
The northern areas are also home to a large population of Hindu Bengalis who came from Bangladesh.
In his first poll meeting in 2024 in Bengal at Cooch Behar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after the CAA rules were notified early this year, criticised the Trinamool and the Congress for “misleading people over CAA rules” and said that those who have faith in Maa Bharti, will be given citizenship.”
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, however, repeatedly spoke about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and said, TMC would not allow the implementation of CAA in Bengal.