Bhabanipur by-election: With 80 leaders in 8 wards, BJP puts up mega show on last day of campaign

In a counter offensive, several TMC leaders and ministers are addressing public gathering across the constituency batting for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

With campaigning for the September 30 by-election in Kolkata’s Bhabanipur assembly seat scheduled to end at 5pm on Monday, the BJP has launched a high-voltage final push with 80 of its leaders hitting the streets to generate support for party candidate Priyanka Tibrewal. In a counter offensive, several TMC leaders and ministers are addressing public gathering across the constituency batting for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

The BJP has pitched 80 leaders in 80 locations across 8 wards in the assembly seat. The BJP announced on Sunday night that 10 party leaders will visit each of these eight civic body wards on Monday. Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari, state BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar, party national vice-president Dilip Ghosh, and party leaders Debasree Chaudhari, Arjun Singh and Swapan Dasgupta are among those who will participate in the party’s campaigns.

The constituency comprises eight civic body wards with a total 206,389 voters. More than 20 per cent people in Bhabanipur are Muslims while Sikhs and non-Bengali speaking Hindus comprise around 34 per cent of the local population.

“The voters will be made to realise that it is their responsibility to ensure that the honour of West Bengal is restored,” said a statement issued by BJP state vice-president Pratap Banerjee.

The TMC has also lined up campaigns to be addressed by Mamata Banerjee and a host of ministers and senior party leaders. “We have to ensure that Mamata Banerjee wins by a margin of at least 0.1 million votes,” the chief minister’s nephew and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said at a meeting on Sunday evening.

Besides Banerjee, the BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal and the CPI (M) ‘s Srijib Biswas are contesting from Bhabanipur in south Kolkata. The Congress has decided not to field a candidate there. The voting will be held on September 30 and the counting of votes will be done on October 3.