Kolkata: Medinipur constituency in West Midnapore District of West Bengal is one of the few among the 42 Lok Sabha seats which will witness a four-cornered contest, following the failure of seat-sharing talks between the Left Front and the Congress there. It is expected to be a tight race between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress.
Medinipur is also a Lok Sabha constituency where the BJP replaced its 2019 winning candidate.
The BJP’s ex-National Vice President and former West Bengal President, Dilip Ghosh, who got elected by a margin of over 88,000 votes has been asked by his party to contest from Bardhaman-Durgapur in West Burdwan District.
Dilip Ghosh has been replaced by the BJP with fashion designer-turned-politician and the party’s legislator from Asansol (South) Assembly constituency in West Burdwan District, Agnimitra Paul.
On the other hand, the Trinamool Congress has fielded actress-turned-politician and the party’s legislator from Medinipur Assembly in the same district, June Malia.
According to party insiders, June Malia’s nomination was a decision taken out of compulsion to avoid infighting in the West Midnapore District leadership over the choice of any candidate having roots there.
As the seat sharing talks between the Left Front and Congress failed in this constituency, the Left Front ally CPI has fielded Biplab Bhatta and the Congress Sambhunath Chattopadhyay.
Political observers say that with the Congress and CPI fielding candidates separately, the contest will largely be between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress.
The BJP’s Agnimitra Paul has three major advantages. First, the comfortable victory margin of her party in the 2019 polls is keeping her a few steps ahead in the race.
Second, during the last five years, Dilip Ghosh has not only strategically nurtured the constituency but has also structured the scattered organisational network there.
Third, given the infighting in the Trinamool Congress in the district, the possibility of a section of the party machinery becoming deliberately inactive cannot be ruled out.
However, the four-cornered contest has given an opportunity this time to the Trinamool Congress’ June Malia to pose a tough challenge to her competition.
In the event of consolidation of the dedicated vote bank of the ruling party and the division in the anti-Trinamool Congress and anti-BJP votes between the Congress and CPI candidates, June Malia can have a statistical advantage.
Medinipur Lok Sabha constituency had been a traditional CPI bastion since 1980, gifting the Indian Parliament iconic parliamentarians and orators like late Narayan Choubey and late Indrajit Gupta.
Even in the midst of the massive Trinamool Congress wave in 2009, CPI’s Prabodh Panda managed a victory there by a margin of around 50,000 votes.
However, the equation changed in 2014, with Trinamool Congress candidate and actress-turned-politician Sandhya Roy getting elected from the constituency.
The equation changed again in 2019, with the BJP’s Dilip Ghosh emerging as the victor.
It has a strength of around 15 lakh voters and the majority of the population is dependent on agriculture there.
IIT, Kharagpur and Kalaikunda Airbase of the Indian Air Force are located in this constituency.
–IANS