Curtain was rung on Wednesday on the high-pitch electioneering for the second phase Lok Sabha election to three key seats of Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat
in West Bengal’s northern districts on April 26 with the political parties sparing no pains to woo the electorate.
Though the contest on paper looks multi-cornered one, the real fight revolves between the main Opposition BJP and ruling
Trinamool Congress as the former has all three sitting MPs.
In Darjeeling young Raju Bista once again is trying his political fortune for the saffron brigade, while Gopal Lama and Manisha Tamang are trying their luck for the Trinamool Congress and Congress respectively.
Bista has some thorns on his path since BJP rebel Bishnu Prasad Sharma is contesting as an Independent, but the BJP leadership
was not bothered at all since the voters in the Hills never supported such partyless contestants.
For Balurghat sitting MP and Bharatiya Janata Party state chief
Sukanta Majumdar is contesting for his second successive term
from South Dinajpur where state minister Biplab Mitra is seen in
action on behalf of the ruling party.
The Left Front has fielded Jaydeb Siddhanta from the RSP (Revolutionary Socialist Party).
Raiganj, which borders Bihar on one side and Bangladesh on the other, is poised for a triangular contest among Trinamool’s Krishna Kalyani, the BJP’s Kartick Pal and Congress nominee Ali Imran Ramz.
Kalyani won the Raiganj Assembly seat on a BJP ticket in 2021 but
later shifted to the Trinamool.
The BJP this time replaced sitting MP and former union minister Debasree Chaudhuri with Kartik Pal, a new face as the saffron had some factional issues.
Debasree Chaudhuri this time is contesting from Kolkata Dakshin as the
BJP nominee.
Ramz was earlier elected to the Assembly from Chakulia on an All India
Forward Bloc ticket.
Darjeeling, also known as the Queen of Hills, has been on focus for
its geographical location as well as the home to multi-ethnic
communities
of Gorkha, Lepcha, Bhutia and other Mongoloid origins, and the
Terai, Dooars and plains home to Adivasi, Rajbangshi as well as the Bengali,
majority of whom has been voting for the saffron brigade since 2009.
Since the mid-eighties politics in the Hills has been centered around
the separate Gorkhaland. The Hills are now a quasi autonomy with GTA (Gorkhaland Territorial Administration), and the demand for the state was at a
dormant stage for now.
Senior union ministers, TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee, her nephew
and party GS Abhishek Banerjee, and BJP’s star campaigners like
actor-politician
Mithun Chakraborty, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar, Suvendu
Adhikari among others held rallies to woo the voters.
Union Home minister Amit Shah, whose helicopter failed to land at
Gokha Maidan on Sunday, however, had communicated a message with
assurances to fulfill
some of the demands, including incorporation of some ethnic
communities in a list of special categories, besides mitigating the
difficulties of the tea gardens workers
once PM Narendra Modi returned to power for the 3rd successive term with votes
from the Hills people.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh also held meeting at Siliguri in favour of Bista.
Mamta Banerjee whilst listing her government achievements for the past
13 years assured more developments for the people living in north
Bengal.
The Election Commission is expected to deploy additional central
forces in the 2nd phase of polling with 299 companies, 30 more than
those on ground in the first phase.
