Malda: TMC mounts efforts to counter BJP’s dominance
Malda: Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the English Bazar (EB) Assembly segment, is confident of neutralising the mammoth lead BJP had taken in the general election from this Assembly segment in 2019. Though in 2019, the BJP candidate had been defeated by the Indian National Congress, the huge margin in EB had helped the party emerge in second position in South Malda.
This neutralisation is being seen as a way in checking the advances of the BJP and in turn pave the way for a win for TMC from the South Malda Parliamentary constituency. The party activists have gone all out with the purpose and tried hard to make public the false assurances of the BJP and Sreerupa Mitra Choudhury, sitting MLA of EB who is contesting Lok Sabha from this constituency on a BJP ticket.
In 2019, the same BJP candidate, Mitra Choudhury, was fielded in South Malda and bagged 1,32,860 votes, almost 94,000 more than nearest rival TMC getting 38,478 votes in the English Bazar Assembly segment. Congress-CPIM alliance candidate, Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury, also got 37,607 votes and he ultimately registered a win from this seat by a margin of nearly 8,000 votes.
In 2019, Khan Chowdhury bagged 4,44,270 votes and Mitra Choudhury got 4,36,048. TMC was at the third spot with 3,51,353 votes. The mammoth lead of BJP in English Bazar emerged as an important component attributing to BJP’s advances.
Later, in 2021 Assembly polls, though TMC could not resist BJP from winning the English Bazar seat, it managed to reduce the lead to nearly 20,000. Now, in 2024 elections TMC leaders and activists have unitedly made an effort to neutralise the lead totally for the party to harvest the advantage in the constituency.
Krishnendu Narayan Choudhury, state general secretary of TMC, said: “To gain the seat, our first target was to reduce the EB lead and then neutralise it. The BJP candidate, towing party lines, is making false assurances and getting the votes whereas we always stood by the people, in times of need. The Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, herself walked almost 3 km through the EBM area before polls in her road show which is unique. We have made the public aware of these facts and expect a strong reflection of this in the EVM.”
