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Updated April 5th, 2021 at 18:09 IST

West Bengal Assembly elections: Key constituencies to look out for in third phase

After a power-packed second phase, West Bengal is all set to witness the third phase, in which 31 assembly constituencies in three districts are going to polls.

Reported by: Sudeshna Singh
West Bengal election
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After the power-packed second phase, West Bengal is geared up for the third phase which is slated to take place on April 6, Tuesday. In this phase, 31 assembly constituencies in three districts-eight in Hooghly, seven in Howrah and 16 in South Paraganas will go to the polls and decide the luck of 205 candidates across parties, of which 192 are men while only 13 are women, which brings down the female candidature to 6 percent. 

The key constituencies up for polls in the third phase are Diamond Harbour, Tarakeswar, Shyampur and Arambagh. 

Key constituencies in the poll fray:

Diamond Harbour- A TMC stronghold, Diamond Harbour will witness a battle for power among a veteran in politics 70-year-old Pannalal Halder of TMC, a two-time sitting MLA of TMC who is contesting from BJP ticket this time, Dipak Kumar Halder and Prateek Ur Rahaman of CPM. In 2016, Dipak Kumar Halder had defeated CPM's Subhra Sau by 20,774 votes and won the constituency for TMC, but now that he has changed sides, it would interesting to see if TMC, with Mamata Banerjee's nephew And Member of Parliament from the region Abhishek Banerjee, campaigning effortlessly, is retaining the constituency. 

Tarakeswar- A popular Hindu pilgrimage site, Tarakeswar will see a three-way fight between former Rajya Sabha Member Swapan Dasgupta, TMC's Ramendu Singha Roy and CPM's Surajit Ghosh. While the BJP is banking heavily on the Hindu vote bank to come into power, a two-time winner in the constituency TMC hopes to come out victorious for the third time in a row. 

Shyampur-  For Shyampur, Bengali actor Tanushree Chakraborty is BJP's pick against TMC's Kalipada Mandal and Congress' Amitabha Chakraborty. In 2016, Mandal won the seat against Chakraborty with 26,586 votes and has a stronghold in the area, which the BJP aims to uproot with its star candidate. 

Arambagh- A region, known to be more favourable to TMC, Arambagh will see a contest between former Front leader and All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) MLA Bishwanath Karak, and former BJP member Sujata Mondol of TMC, whose ex-husband Saumitra Khan is a BJP MP from Bishnupur. Though BJP's performance in the 2016 assembly elections wasn't great, in the 2019 Loksabha elections the scenario changed a bit, and the party lost by a very small margin, which it claimed was because of the EVMs.

West Bengal Polls 

West Bengal election is seeing an intense face-off between the BJP and the TMC. While the BJP is targeting the ruling TMC over the poor state of development in its regime to come to power, TMC is trying hard to retain it by making the best use of the regional card, and tagging the BJP as an 'outsider', and proving "Bangla niher meyekei chaye".

The first phase of elections took place on March 27 while the second phase took place on April 1. In the first phase, the voter turnout was over 86 per cent while in the second phase it was over 80 per cent. 

The voting for the remaining phases in West Bengal will take place on April 10, April 17, April 22, April 26 and April 29. The declaration of the results will take place on May 2.

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Published April 5th, 2021 at 18:09 IST

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