Mamata Banerjee will be submitting her nomination paper for the Bhabanipur seat around 11am on Friday, on the day when Ganesh Chathurthi commenced this year. This day selection, too, is significant, say party insiders, as Bhabanipur represents a cosmopolitan culture.
Most political pundits say Banerjee should win easily. TMC insiders say it is the victory margin in Bhabanipur on which the TMC is working on. But in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, this home turf assembly segment of Mamata Banerjee gave a mere 3,168 vote lead to TMC. This close margin in 2019 was matter of concern in the party.
The presence of non-Bengali voters and the wave to form a national government of the BJP at the Centre were reasons for that result clearly, say experts. But the narrative flopped in 2021 though BJP tried in every way to get this non-Bengali Vote Bank. Sovandev Chatterjee got 57.71 percent vote share and won by a margin of 27000 votes. That seems to be behind the TMCs confidence that it only needs to work on increasing that victory margin to a record level for the CM.
Political analyst Biswanath Chakroborty says BJP aspiration has been destroyed by Banerjee win in the state. “They are totally frustrated now, their leadership is divided and right now they don’t have direction. The declaration of by-polls itself has put them in trouble because they never wanted it now. So psychologically, TMC is much ahead here,” Chakroborty said.
The Left is contesting but many expect them to lose their deposit, like the joint Congress-Left candidate did just months ago from this seat.
Non-Bengali Vote and Poll Percentage
More than 40 percent non-Bengali voters are there in Bhabanipur and BJP often tries to hold on that as in 2019 when they got benefit of this factor. There are eight municipal wards in Bhabanipur of which in 70 number ward and in 74 number ward, BJP had a lead of of 2092 votes and 537 votes respectively in 2021.
In 2019 Loksabha polls in this assembly segment, the lead was 3168 votes for the TMC. Minister Subrata Mukherjee who has been given responsibility of 63 ward (Park Street area) with good number of non-Bengali voters, says: “See this time even the BJP staunch supporters will not give vote to them because Narendra Modi has not done good to their business. They say 2019 was different and see the result of 2021, Mamata is charismatic leader. BJP voters too are feeling what is the point in giving vote to BJP as it will be mere wastage.”
Interestingly, September 30, the Poll day is a weekday and the trend says in Bypoll polling percentage generally goes down. In 2021, the voting percentage here was 61.36 %. In the Covid situation huge turnout is not expected and if BJP voters do not step out thinking a state government has already been formed and this is not National election, it is advantage TMC.
BJP President Dilip Ghosh claimed: “Nandigram also they did lot of things but lost. We will also fight in every way.” A surprise factor may be the high vaccination rates in the slum areas of Bhabanipur — the TMC expects it to be the beneficiary of the same.
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