Mamata's development work to be poll plank of Dulal Das for Maheshtala by-election

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress candidate Dulal Das is banking on the all-round development work of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, as he hopes to win the Maheshtala by-election scheduled to be held on Monday.

The Maheshtala Assembly seat in South 24-Parganas district fell vacant after the death of its two-time representative Kasturi Das of Trinamool in February this year.

Das has been pitched against a Congress-Left Alliance and BJP that has emerged as a distant second in the recently concluded Panchayat elections. The CPI(M)-Congress alliance had fielded Pravash Chowdhury while BJP's candidate is Sujit Ghosh.

"The Panchayat election results have shown clearly that people of the state are with the development of Mamata Banerjee. Maheshtala is also not an exception. In the last few years, a development wave has swept here. I have been campaigning, highlighting the development work that has taken place and will follow in the next few years," Das said.

According to Das, who is the sitting chairman of Maheshtala Municipality, 80 percent of the sprucing up of the roads has already been completed, along with complete overhaul of the water distribution system.

"Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister Firhad Hakim has assured me to construct an intake jetty at Pujali for treatment of water, so that water from Pujali can also be used in Maheshtala," Das maintained.

Major real estate development like Eden City and Bata Riverside has changed the topography of the area. "The 19 km flyover from Jinjira Baazar to Bata will make the connectivity much better," he added.

The seat had been a CPI(M) bastion till 2011, when it lost to Trinamool Congress, which grabbed power in the state. Dulal's wife late Kasturi Das defeated CPI(M)'s candidate by more than 26,000 votes.

In 2016, she returned to defeat the party again by 12,452 votes. In contrast, the BJP received 3,689 votes in 2011 and 14,909 votes in 2016. The bypoll has been scheduled for May 28 and counting will be on May 31.

The Maheshtala Assembly constituency has 35 wards of Maheshtala municipality. However, wards from 1 to 7, 9 and 10 have gone out of the municipality area because of delimitation.

It may be mentioned that the 26 wards, starting from the border of Metiabruz-Garden Reach up to Shyampur, have a sharp divide not only population-wise, but also in terms of social status and economic sustainability.

The area from Shyampur to Batanagar has a dominance of Hindu population, which thrives on service and business, while the 45 percent Muslim population living on the both sides of the railway track from Brace-Bridge to Akra, Memanpur and Dakghar is mainly dependent on the garment industry.