The campaign for the last phase of Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal ended on Saturday with 17 constituencies going to the poll on May 12.
The last of the five-phase election is crucial as the ruling Trinamool Congress will try to retain the 14 seats it had won in 2009 and the Left Front will try to wrest at least some.
An electorate of 2,55,75,744 are eligible to vote to decide the fate of 188 candidates comprising 1,33,27,722 male and 1,22,47,765 female voters and 257 from the other gender.
The 17 Lok Sabha constituencies are: Beharampore, Krishnagar, Ranaghat, Bongaon, Barrackpore, Dum Dum, Barasat, Basirhat, Jaynagar, Mathurapur, Diamond Harbour, Jadavpur, Kolkata (South), Kolkata (North), Tamluk, Contai and Ghatal.
Kolkata (North) constituency will witness a fight among 18 candidates, the maximum, with the Diamond Harbour coming next with 16 candidates. The lowest seven candidates will try their luck in Contai constituency.
Prominent TMC candidates in fray are Sudip Bandyopadhyay in Kolkata North, Dinesh Trivedi in Barrackpore and Sougata Roy in Dum Dum, besides celebrities like actors Dipak Adhikari (Dev) in Ghatal and Tapas Paul in Krishnagar.
Trinamool Yuva President Abhishek Banerjee, nephew of Mamata Banerjee, is also a candidate to watch out. On the other hand, CPI-M's Subhasini Ali is fighting from Barrackpore seat.
BJP candidate magician P C Sorcar (Junior) in Barasat, and WBPCC President Adhir Chowdhury in Beharampore, besides former West Bengal finance minister Asim Dasgupta of the CPI-M and former Union minister Tapan Sikdar of the BJP, pitted against each other in Dum Dum, are the key contestants in this phase.
Of the 17 constituencies, the CPI(M) had lost all the seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, while the CPI, SUCI and the Congress won one seat each. The ruling Trinamool Congress had won 14 in 2009, while it had won only one seat in the 2004 general election.
In the 2011 assembly election, the TMC had made deep inroads in the assembly segments falling in these 17 seats covering the districts of Kolkata, North 24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas, East Midnapore and Nadia.
In the 2013 panchayat polls, the TMC fighting alone won all the four Zila Parishads of North 24-Parganas, South 24 Parganas, East Midnapore and Nadia thus giving it a headstart in the Lok Sabha elections. Only Murshidabad Zilla Parishad had been retained by the Congress.
With lots of interest among the electorates, the BJP is, however, likely to be a crucial factor in at least six seats - Krishnagar, Dum Dum, Kolkata North, Basirhat, Barasat and Diamond Harbour.
The high-pitched campaign saw BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi making impressive forays into the districts as well as the metropolis.
Not to be left behind, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee also held a number of rallies across the state.
Comments
0 comment