News Analysis India

Tag: West Bengal election second phase

  • Left govt’s hooliganism is being repeated by BJP: Mamata Banerjee

    By ANI
    HOOGHLY: Ahead of the second phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said the hooliganism perpetrated by the Left government was being repeated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

    While speaking at a public rally in Goghat, she said: “I once went to attend a programme in Chamkaitala and we were not allowed to set up a stage for the meeting. We were not allowed to have mics and repeated gunfire was heard in the background. Communist Party of India’s (Marxist) hooliganism is now being replicated by BJP.”

    Banerjee also said there was a conspiracy to murder Trinamool Congress member Ajit Kumar Panja.

    “I had held a meeting at Gopinathpur earlier. After I left for Midnapore, I came to know that CPM had captured the entire area, from Arambag to Goghat and burned down several homes,” she added.

    She also credited herself for creating several development projects in West Bengal.

    “Today, Railways has reached Goghat, this was done by me. BJP and CPI(M) did not create this, but now they are inaugurating these projects. They have no shame!” she remarked.

    In phase two of the elections, a total of 30 Assembly constituencies from the districts of South 24 Parganas, Bankura, Paschim Medinipur and Purba Medinipur will go to polls.

    There are 171 candidates in the fray in phase-II of West Bengal polls, out of which 152 candidates are men while only 19 are women.

    Among these candidates, two are undoubtedly the most prominent figures, that is, Mamata Banerjee and her former ministerial colleague Suvendu Adhikari, who had joined the BJP in December last year.

    Nandigram is all set to witness the most high-profile contest in the second phase where Banerjee and Adhikari are taking on each other. Adhikari had earlier pledged that he will quit politics if he does not defeat Mamata Banerjee by 50,000 votes in Nandigram.  

  • The significance of Nandigram in West Bengal polls

    By ANI
    NEW DELHI: The assembly constituency of Nandigram, which will witness a high-octane, high profile battle between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her former ministerial colleague and now BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, will go to the polls in the second phase of the ongoing West Bengal assembly elections on April 1.

    Adhikari had joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in December last year and is raring to give a tough fight to the Trinamool Congress chief.

    Nandigram is touted to be the deciding constituency in the Bengal polls. BJP’s chances of winning the state assembly elections would increase manifold if they can somehow manage to win Nandigram.

    ALSO READ: Constituencies to look out for in 2nd phase of polling in Bengal

    In the 2016 by-election for the Tamluk Lok Sabha seat, which includes Nandigram, BJP got about 196,000 votes. However, BJP inflicted a shock to the TMC when it won 18 Lok Sabha seats with a vote share of more than 40 percent in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

    And it is the performance in the 2019 general assembly elections that has made the BJP a serious contender for power in the state. While the party did very well in the hills — north Bengal, and the Jangalmahal region — it failed to cross a critical threshold in the south Bengal region. South Bengal is the most populous region of the state and accounts for 167 out of the 294 assembly constituencies. Unless the BJP makes significant advances in south Bengal, it would be very difficult for the BJP to beat TMC.

    ALSO READ: Nandigram torn between Dada and Didi

    Violence took place in Nandigram in 2007 in the aftermath of a failed project by the communist government of West Bengal to acquire land for a special economic zone. The policy led to an emergency in the region, and 14 people lost their lives in a police shooting.

    Mamata and her party noted the issue and raised the slogan “Ma Mati Manush” (Mother, Motherland and People) which was used in their election campaigns. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) later exonerated the Buddhadeb Bhattacharya government of responsibility for the shootings.

    Mamata later claimed that the violence was indeed planned by the Adhikaris, who were members of TMC back then, to dethrone the communist government.

    ALSO READ: To salute movement, I chose Nandigram over Singur, says Mamata Banerjee

    Fourteen years after a bloody farmland agitation in Nandigram changed the political landscape in West Bengal, battle lines have been redrawn in Nandigram — a place that shook the foundations of the mighty 34-year-old Left Front regime in the state and propelled TMC to power in 2011.

    Adhikari has claimed that BJP will defeat Mamata — who is for the first time contesting from Nandigram — by a margin of over 50,000 votes, something which will be known only once the counting takes place on May 2.