Express News Service
KOLKATA: The by-election to the Dhupguri Assembly constituency slated to be held on Tuesday in presence of 30,000 central force personnel appears to be a litmus test for the BJP ahead of next year’s Lok Sabhas election as the segment falls under the saffron camp’s north Bengal turf where the party made deep inroads in the 2019 general elections and performed impressively in the high-octane Assembly polls two years ago.
After the BJP snatched the seat from the ruling TMC in 2021, Mamata Banerjee’s party appears to be desperate to regain the constituency.
The constituency on Tuesday will witness an aggressive electoral battle between the TMC, BJP and alliance between the CPM and Congress in the agriculture-based Dhupguri. TMC’s former MLA Mitali Roy defected to the BJP on Sunday, 24 hours after she welcomed Mamata’s nephew and ruling party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on a dais.
“We bagged seven out of eight Lok Sabha seats in north Bengal in 2019. Our party also secured victory in 30 Assembly seats out of 54 in the 2021 Assembly elections in the region. But our performance was not satisfactory in the recently concluded panchayat elections despite north Bengal turning out to be our bastion in the previous electoral exercises. So, the bypoll to Dhupguri is a tough test for us which we need to win,” said a senior BJP leader in Kolkata.
In 2021, the BJP secured 45.65 per cent votes and won the seat with a thin margin of around 4,000 votes which has not left the saffron camp feeling confident about its victory in the by-election.
The Dhupguri Assembly seat fell vacant on July 25 with the demise of incumbent BJP MLA Bishnupada Roy. The result of the by-election to the seat will be announced on September 8.
What triggered concern in the saffron camp is the dip in the party’s vote share in all the by-elections and civic body polls since 2021. “We saw a sharp drop of 16 per cent in our vote share in this year’s panchayat elections. We received a jolt in our known strongholds like the areas dominated by tribals and Matuas, a Hindu refugee sect from Bangladesh,” said the BJP leader.
The saffron camp leadership admitted that if the party failed to win the bypoll, it would deliver a negative message to the electorate across the state before the Lok Sabha elections.
KOLKATA: The by-election to the Dhupguri Assembly constituency slated to be held on Tuesday in presence of 30,000 central force personnel appears to be a litmus test for the BJP ahead of next year’s Lok Sabhas election as the segment falls under the saffron camp’s north Bengal turf where the party made deep inroads in the 2019 general elections and performed impressively in the high-octane Assembly polls two years ago.
After the BJP snatched the seat from the ruling TMC in 2021, Mamata Banerjee’s party appears to be desperate to regain the constituency.
The constituency on Tuesday will witness an aggressive electoral battle between the TMC, BJP and alliance between the CPM and Congress in the agriculture-based Dhupguri. TMC’s former MLA Mitali Roy defected to the BJP on Sunday, 24 hours after she welcomed Mamata’s nephew and ruling party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on a dais.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });
“We bagged seven out of eight Lok Sabha seats in north Bengal in 2019. Our party also secured victory in 30 Assembly seats out of 54 in the 2021 Assembly elections in the region. But our performance was not satisfactory in the recently concluded panchayat elections despite north Bengal turning out to be our bastion in the previous electoral exercises. So, the bypoll to Dhupguri is a tough test for us which we need to win,” said a senior BJP leader in Kolkata.
In 2021, the BJP secured 45.65 per cent votes and won the seat with a thin margin of around 4,000 votes which has not left the saffron camp feeling confident about its victory in the by-election.
The Dhupguri Assembly seat fell vacant on July 25 with the demise of incumbent BJP MLA Bishnupada Roy. The result of the by-election to the seat will be announced on September 8.
What triggered concern in the saffron camp is the dip in the party’s vote share in all the by-elections and civic body polls since 2021. “We saw a sharp drop of 16 per cent in our vote share in this year’s panchayat elections. We received a jolt in our known strongholds like the areas dominated by tribals and Matuas, a Hindu refugee sect from Bangladesh,” said the BJP leader.
The saffron camp leadership admitted that if the party failed to win the bypoll, it would deliver a negative message to the electorate across the state before the Lok Sabha elections.
