Diamond Harbour: ISF’s Naushad backs out from fighting Abhishek

Kolkata: After much hue and cry, Indian Secular Front (ISF) leader Naushad Siddiqui has backed out from contesting against Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and candidate Abhishek Banerjee from the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency.

Speculations were put to rest on Thursday following the announcement by the ISF that their Diamond Harbour candidate would be Majnu Lashkar. The party announced candidate names for some of the Parliamentary seats: Noor Alam Khan (Jadavpur), Mozzamil Haque (Balurghat), Mafikul Islam (Uluberia), Jamir Hossain (Barrackpore) and Akhtar Ali Biswas (Basirhat).

For all these days, Naushad had been claiming that he may contest against Abhishek Banerjee. His statements had led to many speculations that the ISF, by fielding him, may be aiming at consolidating the large number of minority votes from the constituency.

Naushad had also accused the TMC of using minorities as vote banks. However, when Abhishek’s reaction was sought on the matter, he told the media that anyone is free to contest since it is the people who have the last word in a democracy.

Diamond Harbour has attained the stature of being the most high-profile LS constituency in Bengal over the past 10 years. Abhishek Banerjee in his debut in 2014 LS polls had won the seat by a margin of over 70,000 votes. In the 2019 LS elections, he had defeated the BJP candidate by 3.20 lakh votes. In the 2021 Assembly polls, all the seven segments that fall under Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha seat were won by Trinamool Congress.

BJP on March 24 announced its second list for Bengal announcing the names of 19 candidates but they gave a miss to Diamond Harbour. The saffron party is yet to announce the names of their candidates for 4 LS seats out of total 42. It was learnt that the BJP considers Diamond Harbour as a “tough” seat.