HOWRAH/HOOGHLY: Bengal polls are treading into the most difficult terrain when a couple of violence-prone rural seats on either sides of the Damodar river — Arambag, Goghat and Khanakul in Hooghly and Udaynarayanpur and Amta in Howrah — got to the polls on Tuesday.
Trinamool was leading in 13 of the total 15 constituencies — eight in Hooghly and seven in Howrah — in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, except in Pursura and Goghat.
Apart from the violence quotient in most of these seats, this zone this time has been witnessing hectic meetings and jalsas by Muslim clerics of the Furfura Sharif, for and against the Mamata Banerjee government.
For instance, Abbas Siddiqui and his Indian Secular Front (ISF) has candidates in three of the eight Hooghly seats going to polls — Jangipara, Khanakul and Haripal and Jagatballavpur in Howrah. ISF patron Abbas Siddiqui has been holding rallies in this zone while his uncle Tawha Siddiqui went on an overdrive to woo Muslims in favour of Trinamool. The ISF factor is bothering the ruling TMC in this phase. Banerjee has appealed to avoid a split in Muslim votes.
The intense political canvassing among the minorities has also led to a counter-polarisation of voters from the majority community, as was evident from PM Modi’s huge gathering at Haripal. Elements contributing to this counter-polarisation are many, including those who were denied voting in the 2018 rural polls and also in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
A look at the voting since the 2011 assembly polls reveals that minorities and Scheduled Castes largely went with TMC, ensuring the party’s victory in all seats till 2019. In 2019, a considerable section of SCs and STs shifted to BJP, fetching the party 18 seats. TMC is also keeping fingers crossed over vote division among the minorities.
CM Banerjee said recently that winning all Hooghly seats was the key to Trinamool forming the government. BJP leaders, on the other hand, are banking on the Arambagh subdivision and Udaynarayanpur, Jagatballavpur and Bagnan in Howrah to turn the TMC plan upside down.
The desperation on either side may put the Election Commission to test in this violence-prone zone.