Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s assurance that the state government will implement Ghatal master plan on its own within 2-3 years without any help from the Centre may give Deepak Adhikari (Dev) an extra edge in his electoral battle with BJP’s Hiran Chatterjee in the Ghatal Lok Sabha (LS) constituency.
Ghatal LS has been in discussion as two silver screen heroes of Tollywood are pitted against each other. Dev is eyeing a victory for the third time while Hiran, a BJP MLA from Kharagpur is contesting LS elections for the first time. During his tenure as MP, Dev raised the Ghatal master plan issue several times but the Centre is yet to implement it.
In the 2019 LS elections, Dev defeated BJP’s Bharati Ghosh by a margin of more than 1 lakh votes. Dev had secured 7,17,959 votes while Ghosh managed to get 6,09,986 votes. CPI candidate Tapan Gangopadhyay received only 97,060 votes. CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta became MP from Ghatal in 2009 and it remained a stronghold for the Left for long. The allegiance of the people shifted to the ruling party Trinamool Congress as soon as Mamata Banerjee came to power. The personal charisma of superstar Dev also contributed for the Trinamool Congress to seal the seat in 2014 when Dev had contested from Ghatal for the first time.
There are 7 Assembly constituencies which fall under Ghatal LS. They are Ghatal, Daspur, Keshpur, Panskura, Debra, Sabang, Pingla. In the 2019 LS elections, Trinamool Congress won five Assembly segments while the BJP won only two ~ Panskura and Debra. In the 2021 Assembly elections, Trinamool Congress won 6 Assembly seats apart from Ghatal Assembly seat.
Chief Minister Banerjee during a public distribution programme in West Midnapore on March 5 asserted that the state government would implement the Ghatal master plan within 2-3 years. Banerjee had assured that the Ghatal Master Plan would be implemented by the Bengal government with its own resources as the Centre did not respond to the longstanding demand of the people in the region, which local MP Dev tried to push in the last 10 years. As it is a flood-prone area the Ghatal master plan has immense political significance.
In Ghatal LS constituency there are 12.25 per cent Muslim votes. Around 75 per cent of the entire population are essentially farmers while 5-6 per cent are in jobs. Around 20 per cent of the population belongs to the SC/ST community.
Dev held a rally in Sribara area of Daspur on Monday where thousands of people gathered to have a glimpse of the Tollywood star.
He said that the Bengal CM has assured him that the Ghatal master plan would be implemented.