KOLKATA: As the Ranghat-Dakshin Assembly constituency in West Bengal's Nadia district is heading for the crucial bypoll on July 10, three factors are keeping the BJP in a comfort zone in this electoral battle.
The first factor is the overwhelming support of Matua voters for the BJP camp that not only remained intact in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls but also increased to some extent. This was evident from the results of the two Matua-dominated Parliamentary constituencies of Bangaon in North 24 Parganas district and Ranaghat in Nadia district, where the sitting BJP MPs were able to retain both seats with comfortable margins.
Ranaghat-Dakshin, as one of the seven Assembly constituencies under the Ranaghat Lok Sabha, contributed significantly to ensuring the huge victory margin of the BJP's Jagannath Sarkar in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls. The state BJP leadership is confident that in the bypoll they will continue enjoying the unstinted support of the Matuas, a backward class community which came as refugees to West Bengal from Bangladesh.
The second factor is the turncoat image of the Trinamool Congress candidate from Ranaghat-Dakshin, Dr Mukut Mani Adhikari, who was elected as a BJP candidate from the same Assembly constituency in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly polls.
However, he joined the Trinamool Congress just before the Lok Sabha polls and also got the nomination to contest from the Ranaghat Lok Sabha as the ruling party candidate, which compelled him to resign as a member of the state Assembly. He was defeated in the Lok Sabha polls and Trinamool Congress nominated him as a candidate for the Assembly bypoll.
Now as Ranaghat-Dakshin is heading for a three-cornered contest in the bypolls between Adhikari, BJP’s Manoj Kumar Biswas and CPI(M)’s Arindam Biswas, past poll statistics are yet another comfort factor for the saffron camp.
In the 2021 West Bengal Assembly polls, Adhikari, as the BJP candidate, got elected from the Ranaghat-Dakshin by a margin of 16, 515 votes. However, as per the Assembly-wise results of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Adhikari, as a Trinamool Congress candidate, trailed by a massive margin of 35, 936 votes in 2024.
So the three factors of the Matua equation, the turncoat image of the opponent and the past poll statistics keep BJP in a more or less comfort zone in the forthcoming bypolls.
Despite maintaining a record of peaceful polling in the past, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has decided to depute 12 companies of Central Armed Forces personnel for Ranaghat-Dakshin in the bypolls.