BJP's Bengal Candidates Lineup: A Seat-By-Seat Evaluation

Prime Minister Narendra Modi upped the BJP’s target of seats from Bengal from the 35 set earlier by Union Home Minister Amit Shah to all 42 seats from the state. 

And the fist list of candidates announced by the party for 20 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal reflected the resolve to achieve this target. 

The BJP had won 11 of these 20 seats in 2019 and had come a close second in seven seats. The party retained its sitting MPs in nine of the 11 seats (of the 20 whose candidates were declared Saturday) and replaced just one the incumbent MPs--John Barla from Alipurduar. 

The other seat (of the 20 in the first list) that the BJP won in 2019 is Asansol. Babul Supriyo, who is a minister under Mamata Banerjee now, had won that seat on a BJP ticket in 2019 but defected to the Trinamool Congress after he was dropped from the Union cabinet in early 2022. 

Actor Shatrughan Sinha, who had also defected from the BJP to the Trinamool Congress around the same time, was fielded from Asansol by Mamata Banerjee in the byelections to the Asansol Lok Sabha seat. He won very handsomely.

Mamata Banerjee indicated her intention to field Sinha from Asansol once again this time. But the BJP’s determination to wrest the seat from him is reflected in its choice of candidate for Asansol. 

Popular Bhojpuri actor Pawan Singh has been fielded by the BJP from Asansol. Though he has declined to contest after initially thanking the BJP leadership for fielding him, Bengal BJP leaders told Swarajya that efforts are on to make him change his mind.

A little over 50 per cent of the electorate of Asansol is Hindi-speaking and trace their roots to Bihar and Jharkhand. 

The BJP has a large number of committed voters among the Bengali-speaking people who constitute over 30 per cent of the electorate in Asansol. A popular face nominated by the BJP, thus, stands a good chance of winning Asansol.

The BJP’s sitting MPs in the nine seats--Cooch Behar, Balurghat, Malda Uttar, Ranaghat, Bongaon, Hooghly, Purulia, Bankura and Bishnupur--who have been re-nominated are on strong wickets and stand good chances of retaining their seats. 

John Barla, who has been serving as the junior minister in the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs since July 2021, had been dropped because of his involvement in some controversies and considerable anti-incumbency against him in Alipurduar (his Lok Sabha constituency). 

Barla has been replaced by Manoj Tigga, the sitting BJP MLA from Madarihat which is one of the seven Assembly constituencies under the Alipurduar Lok Sabha seat. Tigga is the chief whip of the party in the state Assembly and is known to be a dedicated party worker with good organising skills. 

“Tigga has fire in his belly and will surely win the seat which is our stronghold,” said leader of opposition Suvendu Adhikari. 

Alipurduar Lok Sabha seat is reserved for Scheduled Tribes (ST) and has a large number of tribals who trace their roots to the Chota Nagpur Plateau as well as Gorkhas, Koch-Rajbongshis and Bengali Hindus. 

Junior Union Minister Nisith Pramanik, who won the Cooch Behar seat by a comfortable margin in 2019, is expected to retain the seat. 

Similarly, state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar is expected to retain his Balurghat seat while Khagen Murmu has a very good chance of winning from Malda Uttar once again. 

Sreerupa Mitra Choudhury, a former journalist and women’s right activist who is the BJP MLA from English Bazar Assembly seat (under the Malda Dakshin Lok Sabha seat) is the party candidate from Malda Dakshin. 

She contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the same seat and lost to Congress’ Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury by a small margin. She is expected to put up a tough fight for the seat. 

The BJP has renominated its sitting MP from Ranaghat Lok Sabha seat, Jagannath Sarkar, from the same seat. Sarkar trounced the Trinamool candidate in the 2019 elections by a margin of over 2.33 lakh votes. Ranaghat is a strong seat for the BJP. 

Junior Union Minister Santanu Thakur, who heads the apex body of Matuas (Hindu Dalits who fled Muslim persecution in East Pakistan and Bangladesh), defeated the Trinamool candidate from Bongaon Lok Sabha seat in 2019 by over 1.11 lakh votes. 

Bongaon is a Matua stronghold and Thakur, who has been renominated by the party, is expected to win the seat this time too. 

The BJP has, wisely, given the party ticket once again to Ashok Kandari, a reputable physician from the Joynagar Lok Sabha seat in South 24 Parganas. Kandari fought the 2019 elections but lost by a margin of over 3.6 lakh votes. However, he garnered an impressive 32.8 per cent vote share. 

Since then, even though he was defeated, Kandari has been nurturing the constituency and now enjoys a lot of goodwill. He is well-known throughout the constituency for his philanthropy. 

Another wise choice of the BJP is Anirban Ganguly, an erudite and scholarly gentleman who heads the New Delhi-based Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, who has been fielded from the Jadavpur Lok Sabha seat from south Kolkata. 

Trinamool’s Mimi Chakraborty, an actor, won the seat in 2019 after defeating the BJP’s Anupam Hazra by 2.95 lakh votes. But she has become unpopular and has fallen out with her party leaders and the seat is ripe for picking by the saffron party. 

Jadavpur is dominated by the bhadralok class and Ganguly is expected to appeal to them. 

The BJP has fielded former Howrah Mayor Rathin Chakraborty, who is a popular politician and homoeopathy practitioner, from Howrah. Chakraborty left the Trinamool and joined the BJP before the 2021 Assembly elections. 

The Trinamool won the Howrah Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 1.03 lakh votes, defeating the BJP candidate who got over 4.73 lakh votes and a vote share of 38.7 per cent. 

Rathin Chakraborty’s free clinics draw hundreds of people every day and he is also well-known for his many philanthropic activities. Also, the sitting Trinamool MP from Howrah--former footballer Prasun Banerjee--has become unpopular because of his neglect of the constituency and his involvement in many controversies. 

The BJP’s sitting MPs from Hooghly, Purulia, Bankura and Bishnupur--Locket Chatterjee, Jyotirmoy Singh Mahato, Subhas Sarkar and Saumitra Khan respectively--are on strong wickets and are expected to retain their seats. 

Another excellent choice by the BJP is of Soumendu Adhikari, son of sitting Kanthi MP Sisir Adhikari and brother of Suvendu Adhikari, for the Kanthi Lok Sabha seat. 

Sisir Adhikari won the Kathi seat on a Trinamool ticket in 2009, 2014 and 2019. Though he has not formally resigned from the Trinamool, it is well-known that he has severed all links with the party. 

Sisir Adhikari and his sons--Soumendu, Dibyendu (the MP from Tamluk) and Suvendu--are the uncrowned kings of the two Midnapore districts (Kanthi and Tamluk Lok Sabha seats fall in these districts). 

Sisir Adhikari won the Kanthi seat by defeating his BJP rival by a margin of a little over 1.11 lakh votes. The BJP candidate got over six lakh votes and his vote share was over 42 per cent. 

Sisir Adhikari will not contest the elections this time and will bless his son (Soumendu). The Adhikari surname and the considerable support for the BJP in Kathi is expected to make Soumendu win the seat by a big margin this time. 

Ghatal Lok Sabha constituency is expected to witness a tough fight between incumbent Trinamool MP Deepak Adhikari (popularly known by his screen name Dev) who has been winning the seat since 2014, and the BJP's Hiranmay Chattopadhyay. 

Hiranmay, more well known as Hiran, is also a popular Bengali actor as Dev. Ghatal falls in Paschim Midnapore district where Sisir Adhikari and his sons wield considerable influence. 

Dev won the seat in 2019 by defeating the BJP’s Bharati Ghosh by a margin of over one lakh votes. Ghosh’s vote share was an impressive 41 per cent against Dev’s 48 per cent. 

But Dev’s vote share had fallen by nearly three percent in 2019 as compared to his performance in 2014 while the BJP’s vote share had increased by more than 34 per cent. 

Dev, the two-term MP, is facing significant anti-incumbency and his reticence in contesting elections--he had announced last month that he will not contest the 2024 elections but retracted on pressure from Mamata Banerjee--has made many in Ghatal unhappy. 

Also, Dev is not well-liked by a significant number of Trinamool functionaries in Ghatal and they are expected to either refrain from canvassing for him, or may even work against him, during the election campaign this time. 

Piya Saha, who became quite famous after the 2021 Assembly elections for her brave resistance to Trinamool goons, has been fielded by the BJP from the Bolpur Lok Sabha seat. 

Saha contested Assembly elections in 2016 and 2021 from Sainthia Assembly constituency that is a part of the Birbhum Lok Sabha seat in Birbhum district. Bolpur Lok Sabha seat also falls mostly in Birbhum district. 

She got a vote share of 12.13 per cent votes in the 2016 Assembly elections and massively improved her performance in 2021 when she increased her vote share to 42.97 per cent. 

After her defeat in the 2021 Assembly elections, she and her family faced harassment allegedly by CPI(M) cadre. But the young leader resisted the attacks and that made her popular. 

The BJP’s choice of Saha for Bolpur is another wise one considering the fact that the saffron party’s vote share there has been increasing. The BJP candidate from Bolpur was defeated by Trinamool’s Asit Mal by a little over one lakh votes. 

The Trinamool faces anti-incumbency in Birbhum district and its image has suffered due to the misdeeds of its Birbhum strongman Anubrata Mandal who is now in Delhi’s Tihar jail. 

Mondal, and a few other Trinamool functionaries of the district, are behind bars because of their involvement in many scams. 

Saha, thus, stands a good chance of winning the Bolpur Lok Sabha seat.