Phase-5 WB Polls: BJP resolute in its bid to defeat TMC

As the fifth phase of the West Bengal assembly polls takes place today, India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party will try to more than make up for firing blanks five years ago in its attempt to dethrone Trinamool Congress in the state.

For Trinamool Congress (TMC), the battle for 45 seats on the road to Nabanna, the state administrative headquarters, for a third consecutive term is even more demanding as it will be up against the BJP surge and also regaining lost ground against other parties.

The six districts going to polls today are Jalpaiguri, Kalimpong, Darjeeling, Nadia, North 24 Parganas and Purba Bardhaman.

In the last assembly polls in 2016, out of these 45 seats, TMC won 32, National Congress and the Left combined won 10 while the BJP scored a duck. The three remaining seats were won by Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, a political party which campaigns for a separate state -- Gorkhaland.

TMC got 44.6 percent votes in the 2016 polls, while BJP won 9.87 percent and Congress and the Left combined secured 37.25 percent (9.18 + 28.07).

But the picture went north in the last Lok Sabha (national election) polls in 2019. In the constituencies that consisted of these 45 seats, TMC got 41.36 percent votes while BJP secured 44.75 percent, more than a four-fold gain within three years.

Considering the voting ratio of the last Lok Sabha election, WB ruler TMC is leading in 23 of 45 seats, while the BJP is leading in the remaining 22 assembly seats.

According to political analysts, TMC will have to recover its lost foothold in this phase for Mamata Banerjee to win a third straight term.

In the fifth phase, a total of 1.13 crore voters will determine the fate of 342 candidates. Considering the fourth phase's incidents, the election commission has decided to deploy 853 companies of central forces to guard 15,789 polling stations. In the last four phases, voting was held for 135 seats.

The incidents in the fourth phase last Saturday and the raging second wave of Covid-19 infections forced the election commission to take some strict measures.

Security has been heightened for phase five in view of the violence in the previous phase, which witnessed five people killed in Cooch Behar, including four by Central Security Force firing.

After the incident, BJP and TMC locked into a tug of war that forced the EC to impose bans on campaigns, including on Chief Minister Mamata, and WB chapter BJP President Dilip Ghosh, for 24 hours while campaign of WB BJP leader Rahul Sinha was banned for 48 hours.

After the incident, Mamata demanded resignation of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, accusing BJP of hatching a conspiracy to intimidate voters.

Amit Shah, on the other hand, held Mamata responsible for firing by central force saying her advice to seize central forces had instigated people to attack security personnel, which led to four deaths in firing.

Besides, the EC extended the silence period to 72 hours from 48 hours for the fifth phase of assembly polls after violence in Cooch Behar and the hike in Covid-19 infections.

In the fifth phase, key candidates include senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader and Siliguri Mayor Asok Bhattacharya contesting from Siliguri; WB Minister Bratya Basu from Dum Dum; BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya from Rajarhat; actor and BJP leader Parno Mittra from Baranagar; former minister and TMC leader Madan Mitra from Kamarhati; actor and TMC leader Chiranjeet Chakraborty from Barasat, while popular singer and TMC leader Aditi Munshi is contesting from Rajarhat.

The last three phases of the eight-phase elections will be held on April 22,  26, and 29 and votes will be counted on May 2.