Victory juggernaut on track, Didi mulls a break from bypolls

KOLKATA: On board the winning spree through elections at various levels, Mamata Banerjee this time plans to take a break from campaigning for the Trinamool Congress candidates contesting the two bypolls in Bengal on November 19.

She has instead assigned key party leaders like Subrata Bakshi, Mukul Roy and Partha Chatterjee to run the campaign.

For the Tier-II leaders fielded on the campaign trail, Mamata herself will keep a close watch.

Trinamool won all the byelections in the state since she came to power in May 2011. The only exception was the Basirhat Dakshin Assembly bypolls in 2014 where Trinamool lost to BJP's Shameek Bhattacharjee.

“As far as I know, Didi is not coming to Tamluk to hold any election rally ,“ Mamata's trusted leader and Bengal Transport Minister Suvendu Adhikari told ET on Friday . A senior party leader from Cooch Behar too said that the chief minister had no plans to run a campaign there.

Byelections to both Tamluk and Coch Behar seats will take place on No och Behar seats will take place on November 19 along with the Manteswar Assembly seat.

Although Mamata is skipping the poll turf this time, her political rivals have started firing on all cylinders. A senior BJP leader told ET that a final decision on party chief Amit Shah campaigning for the bypolls is expected by Tuesday .

The party's local unit was bullish on Shah campaigning in Cooch Behar, where BJP had bagged over two lakh votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The CPM state committee will meet on November 3 to finalise its campaign schedule. Party insiders hinted that CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechury might hold one or two rallies.

CPM state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra and Left From Chairman Biman Bose have begun campaigning.

With the Congress-CPM alliance falling through, Trinamool Congress appears more confident of widening its victory margins in all the byelections.