TMC all-India general secretary Abhishek Banerjee said polling in the Bhabanipur constituency went well, moments after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee cast her vote a little after 3 pm. Meanwhile, the BJP claimed their leader Kalyan Choubey was attacked, but the TMC denied the allegations. Till 5pm, Bhabanipur polled 53.32 percent votes.
The BJP has also alleged rigging in several wards. The party’s War Room has received numerous alarming calls of massive rigging from ward no. 70, 71, 74 and 82.
After a slow start, Bhabanipur saw nearly 36% voter turnout till 1 pm, while Samserganj saw 57.15% turnout and Jangipur 53.78. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s brother Kartik was spotted at a polling booth along with his family. The CM herself is expected to vote around 3:15 pm, while her nephew Abhishek will vote around 2 pm. Meanwhile, BJP’s Bhabanipur candidate Priyanka Tibrewal has been “causing traffic jam with her convoy of 30 cars”, alleged the TMC. She has been hopping around polling booths since morning, in hope of “fair elections”.
“TMC MLA Madan Mitra has purposely shut the voting machine here (polling booth of ward number 72) as he wants to capture the booth,” she alleged. The by-election is seeing chief minister Banerjee and Tibrewal square off in a hotly contested poll. The assembly constituency, which lies in the heart of south Kolkata, is Banerjee’s home turf. Not only is Banerjee a resident of this constituency, she had been elected twice from the seat in 2011 and 2016. On the other hand, Tibrewal is a woman youth leader and advocate who was the legal adviser of Babul Supriyo.
She joined the BJP in August 2014 on the now-TMC leader’s suggestion and is said to be inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Congress decided to not field any candidate against Banerjee, while its ally CPI(M) has decided to prop up advocate Shrijeeb Biswas from Bhabanipur.
The by-election assumes significance for Banerjee who must win in order to remain chief minister of the state. As per Article 164 of the Constitution, a minister who is not an MLA within six months has to resign and therefore it is crucial for Banerjee to win the bypoll. The bypoll became necessary because TMC leader Sovandeb Chatterjee, who had won from Bhabanipur in the assembly polls earlier this year, resigned in May so that Banerjee could contest from the seat and retain her berth.
Even though the Trinamool Congress swept the assembly polls, winning 213 seats out of the 292 where polls were held in April this year to return to power for the third consecutive time, Banerjee lost from Nandigram to BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, her protégé-turned-adversary. Banerjee needs to win from an assembly seat by November 5 to remain the state’s chief minister. The constituency has 2,06,389 electors out of which 95,143 are female voters, which comes to around 46%. More than 20% of the people in Bhabanipur are Muslims, while Sikhs and non-Bengali speaking Hindus comprise around 34% of the local population.
In view of the bypoll, 20 additional companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) will be deployed in the constituency. Besides Bhabanipur, Samserganj and Jangipur constituencies are also going to bypolls on Thursday. Apart from CAPF, there are 52 other companies of central forces deployed for the polls in the three assembly seats. On Tuesday, the Election Commission imposed Section 144 in Bhabanipur till the end of bypoll on September 30. The decision came after a delegation of BJP leaders approached the Election Commission to enforce curfew and deploy central forces to ensure fair elections.
As heavy rains pounded Kolkata, election officials said all arrangements have been made in case the rains continue. All polling centres were asked to arrange pumps to drain floodwaters, while police personnel deployed for the election were told to carry raincoats and umbrellas, they said. Several places in the Bhabanipur constituency were under water on Wednesday following the overnight rains, officials said. Waterlogging was also reported from Amherst Street, Thanthania, Central Avenue and Nayabad, among others.
(With inputs from agencies)