Infighting and BJP under-current keep TMC nervous.
Barasat Lok Sabha constituency situated in the northern fringes of Kolkata is witnessing a battle between doctors. Two-time MP TMC's Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar is up against BJP's Mrinal Kanti Debnath.
Also in the fray are Forward Bloc's Haripada Biswas and Congress' Subrata Dutt. The assembly segments under Barasat are Habra, Ashoknagar, Rajarhat New Town, Bidhannagar, Madhyamgram, Barasat and Deganga, all of which are in North 24 Parganas. TMC won all the seven seats in the 2016 assembly polls and Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar is significantly more popular than any of her opponents in Barasat. Yet, the TMC is slightly nervous ahead of polling on 19th May.
There is open infighting in the TMC ranks with Bidhannagar Mayor and Rajarhat-Newtown MLA Sabyasachi Dutta not campaigning for Kakoli Ghoshdastidar. He is using his resources to campaign in the adjoining Lok Sabha seat DumDum. Also BJP has rapidly increased its voteshare in Barasat. Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar has alleged that Forward Bloc is transferring its vote share to BJP, which would spell trouble for TMC.
BJP is likely to do well in urban centres like Rajarhat Newtown and Bidhannagar. Debnath is a respected doctor hailing from Madhyamgram, so they are expected to do decently there too. It is the rural centres which give TMC an edge. Deganga with a vast percentage of Muslim population expected to vote overwhelmingly for TMC. Bringing clean drinking water to Madhyamgram, Habra, Ashoknagar and Barasat is considered as a major success for Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar. According to the MP, she has also done major work for ensuring rural electrification an road construction. TMC hopes that the work done by the MP would be enough to arrest the saffron surge.
Historically, Forward Bloc has won the seat six times, TMC four times, Congress on four occasions and CPI twice. TMC in its political debut won from Barasat when Dr Ranjit Panja got better of Chitra Ghosh.
In 2014, Ghosh Dastidar defeated Mortaza Hossain of Forward Bloc by 1.73 lakh votes. While that is impressive but the vote share of Forward Bloc and BJP was much more than that of 2014. That's what is keeping BJP interested in Barasat. However, Forward Bloc candidate is no pushover. He is a Matuya and is expected to get support of the sizeable portion of the community residing here. BJP is worried about their candidate's relative low-profile and is hoping for a Modi magic to seal the deal.
Will the vandalism of Vidyasagar bust issue be a factor in the elections, particularly among Bengali middle class. The answer will be clear on May 23.
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