Mamata Banerjee hold road show at Bhowanipore as part September 25 by-elections campaign

KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday held a road show at Bhowanipore here as part of her campaign for the September 25 by-elections. Mamata is contesting the seat against Nandini Mukherjee of the CPIM, who by profession is a professor of computer science and engineering departnemt of the Jadavpur University.

This is Mamata’s first contest for an Assembly seat in West Bengal. Mamata will have to a member of the state legislature by November 19 this year to continue as the chief minister. To help her winning the Bhowanipore seat, the state PWD minister Subrata Bakshi, who had won the seat in May this year, had resigned.

The results of the Bhowanipore by-election will be out on September 28. Even though Mukherjee of the CPIM had launched her campaign about 13 days ago, Mamata held her first road show on Saturday and sources in her party said she might not go for second round of campaign in Bhowanipore.

Bhowanipore is a Trinamool Congress bastion. Bakshi had won the seat in May assembly polls by a margin of about 50,000 votes. Neither Mamata nor the CPIM is sure about the fact that the chief minister will win the seat by a handsome margin. Bhowanipore will be chief minister’s constituency. Only issue is the victory margin.

Bakshi had won the seat by about 50,000 votes by defeating Narayan Prasad Jain of the CPIM. There is no doubt that Mamata will increase the margin. Interestingly, Jain, who had contested the seat on a CPIM ticket, has recently joined Trinamool Congress and campaigning for Mamata.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is supposed to address a Left Front gathering in the city on September 21. CPIM sources said that the party leadership was likely to organise a road show in Bhowanipore with Bhattacharjee on that day.

Mamata, will be busy on September 21 as Union home minister P.Chidambaram will be in the city to lay the foundation stone for a NSG hub near the city airport. Mamata will also attend the function and has got a green signal from the Election Commission for the purpose. Naturally, it may not be possible for Mamata to hold any election rally at Bhowanipore in September 21. The CPIM, it is learnt to grab the opportunity of Mamata’s business on that day to give a finishing touch to their campaign at Bhowanipore.