The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pins its hopes on two former Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders, Mukul Roy and Arjun Singh, in the sixth section of West Bengal’s meeting elections on Thursday. The BJP is relying on them to ship seats in North 24-Parganas, the state’s largest district. Another key issue in this section — in which 43 seats are up for grabs — is the Matua vote; the BJP has tried to woo this part with its promise of implementing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA.
Singh is an influential determine in North 24-Parganas’ Barrackpore, the Lok Sabha seat he gained in 2019 by upsetting two-term TMC MP Dinesh Trivedi (the latter joined the BJP in March). Before that, Singh had been a TMC legislator from Barrackpore’s Bhatpara for 4 occasions since 2001. With Singh preventing the Lok Sabha elections, his son, Pawan, gained the Bhatpara seat in a bypoll in 2019, defeating TMC minister Madan Mitra.
The son is in the fray once more from the identical seat that votes on Thursday. Singh’s brother-in-law, Sunil, is preventing from Noapara, a seat he gained as a TMC candidate in a 2018 bypoll. But this time, Sunil too is with the BJP.
“It is a classic family of back-stabbers…They must be defeated,” a TMC chief in Barrackpore mentioned.
Singh advised News18 that he anticipated bother through the voting course of, alleging that the TMC would attempt to cease his core voters. “There will be a lot of jhamela (trouble)…the TMC will not allow fair voting. The local police are beating up voters, stopping them from coming out of their houses. Central forces should intervene,” Singh mentioned.
Besides Singh, the BJP can also be banking on Roy, who’s credited with the celebration’s success in Bengal in the nationwide elections two years in the past; the BJP gained 18 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019.
Roy is contesting the Krishnanagar North seat in Nadia district. His son, Subhranshu, a two-time TMC MLA, is preventing from Bijpur in neighbouring North 24-Parganas as a BJP candidate.
Both Singh and Roy are seen as main gamers who helped the TMC construct and retain its dominance in North 24-Parganas, earlier than they shifted to the BJP and helped the saffron celebration make a mark in the district for the primary time in 2019. Seventeen seats in North 24-Parganas are polling in the sixth section, whereas 16 will vote in the eighth, and the final, section.
Another main issue in this district is the Matua vote. Matuas, who’re Hindu Dalit refugees from Bangladesh, have a robust presence in constituencies equivalent to Bangaon, Gaighata and Habra, amongst others.
The BJP gained the Bangaon Lok Sabha seat for the primary time in 2019; the Matua headquarters of Thakurnagar falls in this constituency. A big part of Matuas is believed to be backing the BJP with the celebration’s promise to implement CAA resonating amongst them. CAA fast-tracks citizenship of Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Christians and Parsis who’ve arrived in India from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh earlier than 2015.
The BJP has fielded Subrata Thakur, the youthful brother of Bangaon MP Shantanu Thakur, from the Gaighata meeting seat, in one other outreach to the Matua group. This is a tricky seat, because the TMC has gained it 4 occasions in a row since 2001.
Other vital seats going to polls in the sixth section are in Nadia, Uttar Dinajpur and Purba Bardhaman districts.
Read all of the Latest News and Breaking News right here
