West Bengal polls: Mamata Banerjee aims at rich haul in phase-III

KOLKATA: A crucial cluster of 75 seats spread over the Kolkata metropolitan area and neighbouring North and South 24-Parganas go to the polls on Wednesday. Mamata Banerjee has over the years worked on these seats and has got dividends in the 2009 Lok Sabha and subsequent local body elections.

Mamata isn’t contesting the polls this time but is spearheading an aggressive campaign against the Left Front led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee , whose seat Jadavpur also goes to the polls on Wednesday. In Round III, Kolkata has 11 seats, South 24-Parganas has 31 and North 24-Parganas 33.

In the last parliamentary polls, the Left had suffered big reverses in these areas and in the subsequent civic polls too, the Trinamool did remarkably well winning back Kolkata Municipal Corporation and a host of civic bodies . By then Mamata was sitting on a surge that spread rapidly to the districts over two years.

Bhattacharjee has tried to claw his way back with a course correction programme . He has tried to reconnect with the rural and urban poor which his party had alienated with some disastrous land acquisition programmes.

The extent of the Left’s recovery is open to debate but observers here do talk of a distinct edge for Mamata. Numberwise, she is ahead of her rival in these 75 seats. In the 2009 LS polls, the Trinamool-SUCI vote share stood at 51.1% against the Left’s 41%. It had leads in 66 Assembly segments against the Left’s 9. Given these figures , Trinamool would hope to win a rich haul in these areas. Mamata is hoping to turn the tables on the CPM in Jadavpur, Dum Dum, and Khardah, where Bhattacharjee, Gautam Deb, new voice of the party, and finance minister Asim Dasgupta are in the fray. Bhattacharjee takes on former chief secretary Manish Gupta in Jadavpur, Gautam Deb is pitted against dramatist Bratya Basu and Asim Dasgupta up against ex-Ficci boss Amit Mitra. Worryingly for the Left, in the last parliamentary polls, it had trailed marginally in both Dum Dum and Khardah.

But the Left still banks on seats such as Jadavpur, Tollygunge, Barrackpore , Bijpur, Dum Dum North, Basanti, Kulatali and Canning (East). The Left had slender leads in these seats in the LS polls.

But with elements in the Left out to worsen matters, Bhattacharjee’s labour to recover ground might take a beating . A case in point is the Netai incident . Alleged CPM supporters fired on villagers in January this year killing nine. Recently, a party leader’s disparaging remarks against Mamata left the CPM leadership squirming.

One factor that should bother Trinamool is that the party has been running civic bodies in this belt and not all has gone according to plan. Besides, a sizeable segment of the middle class remains skeptical about what is in store for the state in the event of change.

Data:

Assembly seats phase III 75

Number of candidates 485

Total number of voters 1,44,69,557

Male voters 76,56,456

Female voters 68,13,101