Clash of heavyweights in fourth round: Four ministers, three MPs in fray; real test in North Bengal

Forty-four constituencies will go to the polls on Saturday in the fourth round of eight-phased assembly elections in West Bengal. The seats fall in Cooch Behar and Alipurduar districts in north Bengal and parts of South 24 Parganas, Howrah and Hoogly in the south. While the BJP swept the North Bengal seats in 2019, the TMC made huge gains in South Bengal. A look at the numbers...

KEY Contests

SINGUR: Rabindranath Bhattacharya —'Master Moshai' (the teacher) — who won this seat on a Trinamool ticket in 2016 -- has crossed over to BJP. He is fighting former associate Becharam Manna (Trinamool). Student leader Srijan Bhattacharya of CPM is also in the fray. TMC had forced Tatas out of Singur, where the conglomerate had acquired land to build a plant for its small car Nano.

TOLLYGUNJ: Union Minister Babul Supriyo fights sitting MLA and minister Aroop Biswas and Debdut Gosh of CPM

CHUCHURA: BJP MP Locket Chatterjee vs Trinamool's sitting MLA Asit Mazumder

DINHATA: BJP MP Nisith Pramanik vs Trinamools sitting MLA Udayan Guha BEHALA PASCHIM: Four-term MLA Partha Chatterjee, who is also a state minister and TMC secretary general, will take on film actor Srabanti Chatterjee of the BJP

BEHALA PURBA: TMC fields Ratna Chatterjee, estranged wife of the sitting MLA and former Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee, who joined BJP in 2019 but left later. Her rivals are actor Payel Sarkar of BJP and CPM's Samita Har Chowdhary. Women voters outnumber men on this seat.

SONARPUR DAKSHIN: Clash of television personalities. TMC's Lovely Moitra will take on BJP's Anjana Basu.

DOMJUR: Rajib Banerjee, a former minister of the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, is contesting on a BJP ticket against Trinamool's Kalyan Ghosh and CPM's Uttam Bera

COOCH BEHAR UTTAR: State minister Binay Krishna Barman vs Sukumar Roy of BJP vs Nagendra Nath Roy (FB) NATABARI: State minister Rabindra Nath Ghosh vs CPM's Akik Hassan vs BJP's Mihir Goswami