With Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee fighting to keep the West Bengal chief minister’s post, the Bhabanipur bypoll has captivated the nation for weeks. There was significant interest as voting took place on Thursday in the constituency in Kolkata. A lot of eyes though were on two wards in particular: no. 70 and 77.
Ward no. 70 is where the TMC has consistently trailed. Even in the April-May assembly polls this year that the party won decisively, it was behind here by 2,092 votes. On the other hand, in ward no. 77, Trinamool always gets a massive advantage. Of the lead of about 28,000 votes that TMC’s Sovandeb Chattopadhyay got in the assembly polls while winning the Bhabanipur constituency, more than 20,000 were from this ward. He later vacated the seat for Mamata as she has to get elected to the state assembly within six months of taking charge as chief minister on May 5 after losing from Nandigram in the elections earlier this year.
In Bhabanipur’s ward no. 70, about 63 per cent of the population is from non-Bengali communities. Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Priyanka Tibrewal would expect to get an advantage here. The area has both slums and high-rises. There wasn’t much turnout here as voting began early in the morning. But the numbers rose after 11am.
Voters started turning up in large numbers at the polling booth of Khalsa High School in the ward only in the second half of the day. Most of them were above 50 years of age. There were many Bihari and Gujarati voters who came along with their families in the afternoon and evening. Of the few voters who showed up during the first half of the day, most were women.
“We have come while maintaining Covid protocols. The best side will win; that’s all,” said area resident Sunit Bajaj.
“I am keeping my fingers crossed,” said Ashim Basu, the TMC ward coordinator of the area. “I thank the people who have come out in large numbers and voted. During the election in April, we had 60 per cent voting by 5.30pm. This time, it’s 55 per cent. I hope this time we get the lead.”
Ward no. 77, on the other hand, has only about 10 per cent non-Bengali voters. Here too, the morning hours saw a low turnout, but more people showed up as the day progressed. By 5pm, the voter count was approximately 58 per cent, say political workers here.
Azizul Raheman, who came to vote around 6pm, told News18, “This time too the TMC will get a massive lead here.”
The Trinamool Congress seems confident of Mamata winning the Bhabanipur seat and is only interested in the margin. The BJP though has alleged massive vote rigging by its rival but says it will still perform well. Party MP Arjun Singh, its observer for Bhabanipur, said to News18, “This time too we will get a good lead in ward no. 70. They (TMC) tried rigging but failed. People have voted for us.”
Read all the Latest News , Breaking News and IPL 2022 Live Updates here.
Comments
0 comment