Sujit Bose has slight edge over CPI(M)’s Arunava in Salt Lake

Sujit Bose, Trinamool Congress sitting MP from Salt Lake has an edge over his alliance rival Arunava Ghosh because of sustained work carried out by him in the area for the past five years.

Ghosh has left no stones unturned to ensure that a free and fair election takes place in the area. But he does not have any organisation and is reminding the people how TMC had conducted civic election in Salt Lake in 2015. For survival Ghosh is banking on those who were experts in booth capturing, both jamming and rigging. Ramala Chakraborty is accompanying Ghosh in every meeting and road shows. The original habitants of Salt Lake still remember how Subhash Chakraborty and Ramala had conducted elections in Salt Lake. Ghosh also remembers how Chakraborty had defeated him in the Assembly polls. There was massive booth jamming, intimidation of voters and rigging. Next time Ghosh changed his constituency and became a TMC MLA from Dum Dum.

These memories are still very fresh and it is difficult for Ghosh to wipe out history. Many residents of Salt Lake who are against the alliance said how could such an important person like Ghosh make an alliance with those who in the name of restoring democracy were actually trying to re establish muscle power and red terror in Bengal.

In 2011 assembly election, Bose had won by over 35,000 votes. However, in 2014 LokSabha polls, BJP got 8,000 votes more than TMC. The biggest question is will BJP be able to retain its vote? In 2015 civic polls, it failed to retain and it is obvious that a sizeable percentage of BJP vote will go to TMC.

In the past five years Bose has changed the ambience of vast areas surrounding Lake Town. He has installed a replica of the London watch tower. Some air conditioned bus shelters have also been set up. The roads are being cleaned thrice every day. Through these work Bose has earned the faith of people. On the contrary in the past five years Ghosh did nothing, except appearing in television talk shows and criticising TMC in absence of any TMC representative. As he thinks too much of himself his mass contact is very poor.

With all these shortcomings he is holding street corners and meetings and is assuring people that if voted to power alliance will unmask of politicians with tainted background. However, Bose has a clear edge and on May 19 his smile is likely to be widened when the results of the polls are out.