Polls in seven North Kolkata seats today

KOLKATA: Election in seven constituencies of North Kolkata will be held on Thursday. These constituencies are Chowrangee, Entally, Manicktala, Beleghata, Jorasanko, Shyampukur and Kashipur-Belgachia. The Assembly segments fall under the North Kolkata Parliamentary constituency. Sudip Bandyopadhyay of Trinamool Congress (TMC) was elected as MP from North Kolkata in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

The total number of voters will be around 14, 33, 985. Of these, the number of men and women voters is about 7,97, 437 and 6,36, 542 respectively. In the 2016 Assembly election, TMC had won all these seats. The party has nominated two new candidates, namely, Atin Ghosh (Kashipur-Belgachia) replacing the sitting MLA Mala Saha and Vivek Gupta from Jorasanko replacing Smita Bakshi, the sitting MLA.

In Chowrangee, two-time TMC MLA Nayana Bandyopadhyay will face Santosh Pathak of Sanjukta Morcha and Debdatta Majhi of BJP. The fight is likely to be held between Bandyopadhyay and Pathak.

In Entally, Swarnakamal Saha, two-time Trinamool MLA is facing Priyanka Tibrewal of BJP and Mohammad Iqbal of Indian Secular Front (ISF). In Manicktala, Sadhan Pandey of TMC, who is also a two-time MLA, will face Rupa Bagchi of Morcha and Kashinath Chowbey of BJP. Bagchi was a CPI (M) MLA from Manicktala seat in 2006.

In Shyampukur, Dr Shashi Panja, two-time TMC MLA, is fighting against Jiban Saha of Morcha and Sandipan Biswas of BJP. Saha was defeated by Dr Panja in 2011. In Beleghata, Paresh Pal, veteran Trinamool leader and the sitting MLA is facing Rajib Biswas of Morcha and Kashinath Biswas of BJP in Beliaghata Assembly seat. In Jorasanko Assembly seat, Vivek Dubey of TMC will fight against Meena Devi Purohit of BJP and the former Deputy Mayor. Atin Ghosh of TMC is contesting against Sibaji Singha Roy of BJP and Pratip Dasgupta of Morcha. All these seats have a mixed population with minority and Hindi-speaking pockets.