In West Bengal, TMC and BJP Heavyweights In Neck-and-Neck Contest In Several Constituencies

As the voting process now enters into South Bengal beginning from the fourth phase, now it is a straight fight between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP.  Heavyweight candidates from BJP like Dilip Ghosh, SS Ahluwalia, Rajmata Amrita Roy are fighting TMC candidates Kirti Azad, Shatrughan Sinha and Mahua Moitra respectively. It may be noted that Ghosh was shifted from his Midnapore constituency to Bardhaman-Durgapur. The outgoing BJP MP Ahluwalia who is now contesting from Asansol against Shatrughan Sinha, managed to win by slender 3000 votes in 2019. It is likely to be a tough battle for Ghosh since post 2019 Lok Sabha loss TMC has won all assembly seats barring one in 2021. At Asansol seat, TMC MP’s candidate Shatrughan Sinha may have an edge even though it is the home ground of Ahluwalia. Incidentally, on polling day Rajmata’s body language was not that encouraging and she said that “politics is not her cup of tea”. Mahua Moitra is confident of winning by a lakh margin. It is a tough battle for former cricketer Yusuf Pathan fighting on a TMC ticket from Baharampur against Pradesh Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. Meanwhile, all eyes are on Barrackpore, Hooghly, and Serampore Bongaon. Incumbent BJP MP former actor Locket Chatterjee from Hooghly faces her industry colleague Rachana Banerjee. TMC is keen to wrest back the seat. Similarly, both BJP and TMC are going all out to win the Matua community dominated seats of Bongaon and Barrackpore. Bongaon may be tough for TMC with incumbent BJP MP Shantanu Thakur, a representative of Matua Thakurbari, likely to win the Barrackpore seat. TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee has been tirelessly campaigning for Bongaon candidate Biswajit Das and Barrackpore’s Partha Bhowmick.