In Bengal bypolls, it’s Mamata Banerjee vs her ex-confidant Mukul Roy

The fight between what is being touted as organisational strength and communal force began on Monday in the shape of bye-election at Uluberia Lok Sabha constituency in Howrah district and Noapara Assembly constituency at the Barrackpore industrial belt.

In the last Assembly election at Noapara, Trinamool had lost to Congress-CPM alliance candidate Madhusudan Ghosh, whose death had necessitated the bye-polls. It is also an acid test of Arjun Singh, MLA of the adjoining Bhatpara constituency to pull off a win. On the other hand, former Trinamool MP Mukul Roy who has recently defected from TMC to BJP is also under pressure to prove his mettle and ensure a senior post in state BJP.

If Trinamool wins, it will be a shot in the arm for Mamata Banerjee-government ahead of the Panchayat elections this year and general elections in 2019. Banerjee will also be looking forward to the win to send out a clear message that the defection of Roy had failed to make any negative impact in the party’s popularity among people.

The battle of nerves had already begun putting the BJP on backfoot as they tried to pitch Manju Basu, former TMC MLA as the BJP candidate at Noapara but she backed out at the last moment forcing BJP to replace her with
Sandeep Banerjee, someone who is known to be a close aide of state BJP president Dilip Ghosh.

At Uluberia too, to woo the 54 per cent Muslim votes all the other three parties – TMC, Congress and CPM – have pitched Muslim candidates while BJP had fielded a Hindu candidate, Anupam Mullick hoping that while the Muslim votes would be divided between the other three candidates, they would be able to hold on to the Hindu votes to themselves.