3rd Phase Wb Polls: Challenging for BJP; TMC feels at ease

As voting for the third phase of the West Bengal election takes place today, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) will focus on keeping its traditional bastion intact while India ruler Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will try to end its duck in the battle for 31 Assembly seats.

The third phase of the election will be held across three districts -- Howrah, Hooghly and South 24 Parganas -- where Muslim voters play a key role, according to experts. 

The ruling TMC won an overwhelming 29 assembly seats from these constituencies in 2016, while National Congress and Communist Party of India (Marxist) shared the other two. 

The BJP on the other hand not only failed to win a single seat, but got just 6.91 percent of the votes. The party, however, managed to increase its votes to 37.45 percent in the constituencies that consisted of these 31 seats in 2019 Lok Sabha (National Election) polls.

In third phase, the main challenge for the TMC is to ensure that it keeps its Muslim votes intact. The worrying factors for the TMC is a possible split of Muslim votes between TMC and the coalition of CPM, Congress and the Indian Secular Front of Abbas Siddiqui. 

This worry is quite logical as Abbas Siddiqui, custodian of the famous Furfura Sharif shrine in Hooghly, has a huge number of young Muslim followers mostly in Howrah, Hooghly, and North and South 24 Parganas. 

On the other hand, BJP's main challenge is to maintain the momentum of their growth, which has risen from 6.91 percent to 37.45 percent within three years, while the Left Front, which had its dominance in these areas before, will try it's best to regain its field. 

South 24 Parganas is a TMC dominated area with a Muslim population of nearly 36 percent. In Howrah, the Muslim population stands at 26 percent and 35 percent in Hooghly.

BJP's target is to capture Hindu dominated seats in South 24 Parganas like Gosaba, Sagar, Patharpratima, Kakdwip, Sonarpur and Jaynagar. 

The party was in a comfortable position in the last two phases of polling for 60 seats where the share of Muslim voters was low. But the third phase would be really challenging for them. 

However, to woo voters in its third phase campaign, it targeted the TMC over corruption issues in the Amphan relief fund as the three districts were worst affected during last year's cyclone.

The TMC on the other hand banked on its welfare schemes like "Duare Sarkar", "Swastho Sathi" and "Kanyashree" to counter the BJP. 

Both the parties filed candidates for all seats while the CPIM has fielded 13 candidates, All India Forward Bloc filed two candidates, Revolutionary Socialist Party filed one, Congress nominees are contesting in seven seats and in eight Indian Secular Front has fielded its candidates. 

In today's polling, bigshots like BJP leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta is contesting from Tarakeshwar in Hooghly, BJP leader and popular actress Tanushree Chakraborty is contesting from Shyampur in Howrah, former Minister and senior CPIM leader Kanti Ganguly is contesting from Raidighi under South 24 Parganas, West Bengal Speaker Biman Banerjee is contesting in Baruipur Paschim and prominent TMC leader Saukat Molla is contesting from Canning Purba Assembly seat.

In today's poll, around 78 lakh voters will exercise their franchise to decide the fate of 205 candidates.

A total 618 companies of central forces were deployed for the third phase to guard 10,871 polling stations, all of which have been marked "sensitive" by the Election Commission.

Of 31 assembly seats, 16 are in South 24 Parganas, seven in Howrah and the remaining eight in Hooghly. 

The fourth phase of polling, when 44 constituencies will go to polls, is scheduled for April 10.