A high voltage electioneering by political parties for the third of the seven-phase election to five Lok Sabha seats spreading over three districts of North Bengal on April 23 ended this evening.
Polling for five Lok Sabha constituencies Balurghat, Maldaha Uttar, Maldaha Dakshin, Jangipur and Murshidabad will be held in the third phase on April 23. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), Indian National Congress (INC) and the Left Front have fielded their candidates in all the five constituencies.There was high pitch campaigning for the five seats by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, BJP national president Amit Shah and top leaders of the Congress and Left parties.
The high-pitched campaign was mainly polarised between Banerjee and Modi. Issues ranging from corruption to communalism, NRC to chitfund scams, and, development to security featuredin the speeches of the warring party leaders. The Trinamool Congress chief called upon the people to defeat the Modi government while the prime minister urged voters to exercise their franchise in his party’s favour.
In Balurghat, there are thirteen contestants, including those from the mainstream parties such as AITC, BJP, RSP and Congress, but the main fight will be between AITC and BJP. In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidates Arpita Ghosh defeated Revolutionary Socialist Party’s (RSP) Bimalendu Sarkar to break the Left party’s hold over this parliamentary constituency.
The Revolutionary Socialist Party had held the seat, reserved for members of Scheduled Caste communities till 2009, from 1977. Palash Burman won the Lok Sabha election that year after defeating Congress’ Rasendranath Barman to continue till 1996 when his party colleague Ranen Burman won the seat. In the previous Lok Sabha elections, TMC candidates Arpita Ghosh defeated his nearest RSP opponent Bimalendu Sarkar by 1,06,964 votes. The TMC got 39.86 per cent vote share while the RSP got 29.45 per cent. The BJP received 21.70 per cent of vote share and the INC 7.85 per cent. (UNI)
