Kolkata: Trinamool Congress on Friday published the list of 37 star campaigners for the by-election in the Dhupguri Assembly constituency featuring the names of party supremo Mamata Banerjee and national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. The by-election is scheduled to be held on September 5.
Party vice-president Subrata Bakshi has written to the Chief Election Commissioner and Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) in the state mentioning the list of campaigners. It was learnt from sources that the campaign will be carried out mostly based on small meetings and gatherings. TMC leaders will mainly focus on the development works carried out by the state government and will also highlight the step-motherly attitude of the Centre.
Trinamool Congress boss and the Chief Minister is expected to up the ante against the BJP-led government at the Centre. Party’s national general secretary during his campaign under Jana Sanjog Yatra in the run-up to the Panchayat elections spoke about how the Centre had stopped the dues of the state government under various heads.
Apart from Mamata and Abhishek, there will be other star campaigners too, including Subrata Bakshi, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, Firhad Hakim, Bratya Basu, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Aroop Biswas, Kalyan Banerjee, Mahua Moitra, Md Ghulam Rabbani, Moloy Ghatak, Chandrima Bhattacharya, Dr Shashi Panja and Dr Santanu Sen.
Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh, Aditi Munshi, Sayantika Banerjee, June Malia, Saayoni Ghosh, film stars — Soham Chakraborty, Nusrat Jahan, former cricketer Manoj Tiwary will also be campaigning for their party for the Dhupguri bypolls. Party spokesperson Debangshu Bhattacharjee, Sudip Raha, Jaya Dutta are among the others. To woo women voters, the ruling party has included women leaders in the list. They will also highlight how the state government has introduced many social schemes for the womenfolk.
Trinamool Congress has already named Nirmal Chandra Roy, who belongs to the Rajbanshi community as its candidate for the Dhupguri Assembly bypolls. The Dhupguri Assembly seat in Jalpaiguri district fell vacant following the death of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Bishnu Pada Ray on July 25. A professor at Dhupguri Girls College, Nirmal enjoys a clean image, sources said.
The CPI(M) had held the Dhupguri seat from 1977 till 2016, after which the TMC bagged it. However, in 2021, the TMC lost the seat to the BJP after the sitting Trinamool MLA Mitali Roy lost to BJP’s Bishnu Pada Ray by a margin of over 4,000 votes.
Given that Dhupguri has a large number of voters belonging to the Rajbanshi community, the ruling party is likely to get political mileage by fielding Nirmal. In Dhupguri, the CPI(M) is fielding local folk singer Ishwar Chandra Roy, who will be supported by the Congress.