KOLKATA: West Bengal is all set to go for polls in 152 out of 294 assembly constituencies in the first phase of elections on Thursday. More than 3.60 crore voters, including nearly 1.75 crore women, are eligible to cast their votes.
The contest will largely be about deciding the electoral fate of the ruling Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee and its main challenger, the BJP.
The second phase of elections for the remaining 142 seats will be held on 29 April.
The first phase polls covering 16 districts include 54 Assembly seats in north Bengal districts like Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Cooch Behar, North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur and Malda.
The remaining 98 Assembly seats are present in districts like Murshidabad, East Midnapore, West Midnapore, Jhargram, Purulia, Bankura, West Bardhaman and Birbhum.
The first phase elections test the political strength of the political parties in the State, as 91 lakh voters have been removed from the post-SIR electoral rolls.
In the increasingly polarised battle, issues such as corruption, scams, ‘cash-for-jobs’ recruitment scandal, women's security concerns, infiltrations, and tribal discontent have turned into major talking points.
Thursday’s vote will be an acid test for the BJP, as the party’s stalwarts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, are highly confident of winning the Bengal Assembly elections.
“We are expecting an unexpected result in eight north Bengal districts. Barring a few seats, we will win most of the 54 constituencies in these districts if free and fair elections are held. The Trinamool Congress goons are unleashing threats, asking many voters in different parts of Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar not to go to booths to cast votes,” alleged Dr Jayanta Roy, BJP MP.
The first phase could determine whether the saffron party can still rely on north Bengal as its principal gateway to power or whether the Trinamool Congress has managed to claw back lost ground.
The Election Commission has deployed a record 2,450 companies of central forces, with more than 8,000 polling stations identified as 'very critical'. Each company has around 75 jawans.
For the BJP, the first phase is virtually synonymous with north Bengal.
The party's hopes of challenging the Trinamool Congress statewide depend on retaining dominance in the region that powered its rise in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and helped it to emerge as the ruling party’s principal rival in Bengal. The BJP had won 59 of the 152 seats in 2021, while the Trinamool had won 93 seats in the first phase of polls in the region.
“Our target is to win 215 seats in the 2026 elections, against 214 that we had bagged in the 2021 polls in the State. Our Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, has already said that the party will cross the previous figure by winning one more seat,” said Arup Chakraborty, Trinamool Congress spokesperson.
“In 2021, Amit Shah had targeted 200 seats, but this time, he is targeting to win only in 170 constituencies. It shows that the BJP's confidence level is weakening,” Chakraborty said.
The first phase of the Assembly elections is being held across different landscapes, the tea gardens of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar, the hills of Darjeeling and Kalimpong, the Rajbanshi belt of Cooch Behar, and the border districts of Malda, Murshidabad and Uttar Dinajpur.
Despite differences, one issue that has cast a shadow across almost every district is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
With the deletion of around than 91 lakh names, Trinamool Congress’s share of minority votes may be affected. Over 70 per cent of the removed electors in the eight north Bengal and Murshidabad districts are Muslims.
In 2021, Trinamool Congress had won around 20 out of 152 seats in these districts with a margin of less than 20,000 votes. Nadia has now witnessed more than 4.85 lakh deletions. Malda, Uttar Dinajpur and Cooch Behar have witnessed 4.59 lakh, 3.63 lakh and over 2.42 lakh voter deletions, respectively.
The BJP has tried to turn the SIR exercise into a referendum on infiltration and citizenship, while the TMC has framed it as an attempt to disenfranchise genuine voters, particularly minorities, migrant workers and the poor.
For the ruling party, preventing a BJP surge in the north is critical to shape the political mood for the rest of the contest.
The first phase will also decide the fates of heavyweights like Suvendu Adhikari, Opposition leader and outgoing BJP MLA from Nandigram; Dilip Ghosh, former Bengal BJP MLA from Kharagur Sadar; Shankar Ghosh, BJP chief whip in the legislative assembly from Siliguri; Adhir Chowdhury, former Congress president of Bengal, from Behrampore; Trinamool Congress candidate and mayor of Siliguri Municipal Corporation, Goutam Deb.
Adhikari, who has been pitted against Mamata Banerjee from her home turf Bhabaniur in south Kolkata, is seeking to retain the Nandigram seat that transformed him into a heavyweight for defeating the chief minister with a margin of around 2000 votes in 2021.
This time, Trinamool Congress has fielded Prabitra Kar, once Suvendu’s trusted aide and a former BJP loyalist, against the outgoing Opposition leader from Nandigram.