All eyes on Bhowanipore, Trinamul hopes for a convincing Didi win

Mamata’s popularity in her home turf has been dipping since she first contested in 2011, but now she has a better chance of improving her victory margin

Mamata Banerjee.: File picture

TT Bureau   |   Calcutta   |   03.10.21: Counting for the Bhowanipore Assembly seat, along with two other constituencies of Bengal, began on Sunday morning with all eyes on chief minister Mamata Banerjee's contest, which she must win to stay on as chief minister.

While her win _ she is pitted against CPM’s Srijib Biswas and BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal - is a foregone conclusion, the Trinamul Congress is keen to see she secures a comforting victory margin. 

Counting is also on in Shamsherganj and Jangipur Assembly seats.

The battle for Bhowanipore would not have stretched to the autumn of 2021 had Mamata Banerjee kept personal pride out of the Assembly polls held in scorching April.

The 2021 Assembly polls shattered the invincibility that Mamata Banerjee projected into the voters psyche every time she entered the poll fray, falling short of 1,956 votes. The loss at Nandigram will continue to chase Mamata for the remainder of her political career, unless the result at Bhowanipore throw up an unseen number.

Mamata’s popularity in her home turf has been dipping since she first contested in 2011. Ten years later, the election held on September 30 holds a better chance of giving Mamata a higher victory margin that has eluded all the years that she has been chief minister. Unlike in 2011, when just about 44 per cent of the Bhowanipore voters had queued outside the booths, September 30 saw more than 57 per cent turn out, which Trinamul insiders claim improves the chances of her increasing the margin.

Mamata’s winning margin in 2016 was less than the votes the veteran Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay had secured this May. A win with a margin less than 28,000 will definitely upset the chief minister, running for her third term.

A poor margin could also upset her plans to go national in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. If fewer number of people in tiny Bhowanipore with just above two lakh voters want her as chief minister, what would it mean for her Prime Ministerial aspirations?

Mamata’s opponents --- CPM’s Srijib Biswas and BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal --- both lawyers have little chance against her organisationally. Trinamul had a deployed a battery of senior politicians from the party to cover every nook and corner of the constituency. Her opponents on the other hand had little in their arsenal. None of the national leaders from the BJP turned up at Bhowanipore leaving the field to  state leaders.

For the CPM, which till a decade ago was the ruling party, now has zero representation in the Assembly. October 3 is unlikely to change that.

A 3-0 whitewash in favour of the Trinamul (results for Murshidabad’s Shamshergunj and Jangipur are also going to be declared) is likely to bring a spike in the politics of defection that both the Trinamul and the BJP have encouraged in Bengal. What BJP had used as political strategy after its sudden but spectacular performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls has now come to bite the party.