‘With talks between Left Front & Cong falling apart, Ghatal to see a four-corner poll contest’
Kolkata: The people in the Ghatal Lok Sabha constituency are going to witness a four-cornered contest following the failure of seat-sharing talks between the Left Front and Congress but the main attraction remains to be a fight between two celebrity candidates — Deepak Adhikari (Dev) of Trinamool Congress (TMC) and BJP’s Hiran Chatterjee.
The war of words between the two actors-turned-politicians has added spice to the high-profile electoral battle.
Hiran on a number of occasions accused his opponent Dev over the latter’s interrogations by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money laundering case in which a probe is on.
Hiran also slammed Dev in connection with his roadshows.
“The kind of high-profile roadshows my opponent is doing is nothing but a projection of the financial affluence that he and his party enjoy. Look at us. We are walking on the roads personally interacting with the common people,” Hiran had said.
Dev had also attacked Hiran saying: “Let him not mistake my courtesy as my weakness. The way Hiran is constantly attacking me will not help him win in Ghatal ever.
You can’t win a poll by stooping so low. You have to win by love. How low can a person stoop to win an election?” The Left Front ally CPI and the Congress have given candidates very late.
CPI has fielded Tapan Ganguly as its candidate while Congress at the last moment announced the name of Papiya Chakraborty as the party candidate from Ghatal. An alumnus of the iconic Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Kharagpur, Chakraborty was the general secretary of the social media cell of Congress in West Bengal.
Ghatal Lok Sabha constituency will go to polls on May 25 in phase VI while the results will be announced on June 4. With a voter strength of over 16 lakh, Ghatal is essentially a rural area-dominated Lok Sabha constituency.
A majority of the population is dependent on agriculture. A major problem faced by the people in the constituency is the devastating flood. Dev who is the sitting MP from the same constituency has received assurances from the Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that her government would implement the Ghatal master plan.
Dev won the Ghatal constituency in the Lok Sabha elections 2019, securing 717959 votes while 609986 votes were polled in favour of Bharati Ghosh of the BJP.
Adhikari Deepak (dev) won with a massive margin of 107973.
Dev had defeated CPI candidate Santosh Rana by 260891 votes in 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Dev clinched 685696 votes while Santosh Rana got 424805 votes.
