Kolkata: The stage is set for the by-election to Uluberia Parliamentary and Noapara Assembly seats, which are scheduled to be held on Monday.
The seats fell vacant after the incumbent in Uluberia Lok Sabha seat, Sultan Ahmed of Trinamool Congress and Madhusudan Ghose of Congress in Noapara Assembly seat, died in 2017.
Trinamool Congress has fielded Sajda Ahmed, widow of Sultan in Uluberia Lok Sabha seat and Sunil Singh, chairman of Trinamool-controlled Garulia Municipality in Noapara Assembly seat. The CPI-M has fielded Sabiruddin Mollah in Uluberia Parliamentary seat. BJP has fielded Anupam Mallick, while Congress has fielded Muddasor Hossain for the same.
In 2014, Ahmed had won the seat by 2.01 lakh votes. He had bagged 5.70 lakh votes while CPI-M's Sabiruddin Mollah had received 3.69 lakh votes. Asit Mitra of Congress had received 67,836 votes.
From 2014-17, Ahmed had carried out massive development work in the seven Assembly segments, which include Uluberia (East), Uluberia (North), Uluberia (South), Shyampur, Bagnan, Amta and Udaynarayanpur. Roads in the Assembly segments have been upgraded, with better lighting system installed. The primary health centres have been improved and bus shelters have been constructed.
Ahmed had nurtured the constituency efficiently. In 2014, Trinamool got 48 percent votes, while CPI-M and Congress got 31 percent and 5.7 percent votes respectively, leaving BJP with 11 percent.
Forty percent of the population in Uluberia Lok Sabha seat belong to the minority community. Trinamool Congress has left no stones unturned to increase the margin and has fielded Ahmed's wife to appeal to the sentiment of the voters. Senior party leaders, including Abhishek Banerjee, Sovan Chatterjee, Firhad Hakim and Suvendu Adhikari, had addressed public rallies. Because of massive development work carried out in the past seven years, the people in Uluberia are all for Trinamool Congress. BJP had deployed all of its heavyweight leaders, including Kailash Vijayvargiya, Rahul Sinha and other state leaders including Dilip Ghosh, the party's state president, to campaign for its candidate.
The decision of CPI-M's Central Committee to not go with Congress, is going to hit the poll prospect of Mollah badly. The CPI-M rank and file felt that BJP will try to exploit the situation and finish the election battle, securing the second position.
In Noapara, the Trinamool Congress candidate who is the chairman of Garulia Municipality, is a known face in the area. The breaking of the political alliance between Congress and CPI-M has affected the poll prospect of both the parties. CPI-M has fielded Gargi Chatterjee, while the Congress candidate is Gautam Bose. BJP has fielded Sandip Banerjee.
Trinamool Congress is confident that Mukul Roy will not be able to make any dent among its voters. In 2016, Madhusudan Ghose of Congress, who was a candidate of the CPI-M- Congress alliance, won the seat.
To maintain law and order,
Election Commission of India will deploy 35 companies of Central forces in the two constituencies for the by-election, whose results will be out on February 1.