For many growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, the names like Keshpur, Sabang, Pingla evoke very distinct imagery. Newspapers would be flooded with news of political clashes, 'takeover' of villages from these areas as a churn took place in Bengal politics when TMC gradually gained ascendancy over CPI(M). It is no surprise that now that BJP is slowly coming to its own in Bengal and trying to match up to TMC's stature, Ghatal Lok Sabha, then known as Panskura Lok Sabha seat is witnessing widespread violence.
Ghatal has been in news over an unlikely star battle between TMC's Deepak Adhikary aka Deb and BJP's Bharati Ghosh. Dev is a Bengali film superstar who surprised all by winning in 2014 against CPI's Santosh Rana by 2.61 lakh votes. This time though BJP is his main opponent in this erstwhile Left bastion. Bharati Ghosh was a decorated cop in West Bengal police and was the police chief of West Midnapore district which contains majority of Ghatal Lok Sabha. Ghosh was Mamata's blue-eyed cop but had a fallout with Didi couple of years back. Soon several cases were slapped against Ghosh and her associates. Ghosh joined BJP a while back and was promptly given ticket from Ghatal. She has come into limelight over videos of losing cool at local police officers, TMC cadres. But this week she was also intercepted with Rs 1.30 lakh cash while travelling by car which has attracted attention of EC. In between, several low intensity clashes between TMC and BJP have been reported from several parts of Ghatal Lok Sabha.
Also in fray are CPI's Tapan Kumar Ganguli and Congress candidate Mohammed Saifullah. The assembly segments under Ghatal are Panskura Paschim,Sabang, Pingla, Debra, Daspur,Ghatal and Keshpur. Ghatal Lok Sabha seat existed from 1952 to 1977 before it got delimited and changed name to Panshkura. Ghatal LS again came into existence in 2009 and veteran Gurudas Dasgupta of CPI won from here. In between, CPI won Panshkura from 1980 to 2009, barring a byelecion in 2000, where there was allegation of large-scale rigging against TMC.
In the panchayat election, the BJP gained ground in West Midnapore. With Left candidate not gaining much traction, there is a possibility that many of its voters may switch allegiance to BJP. If that be the case, superstar Dev may be in for real tough time.
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 "Mamata Banerjee with Dev")
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