Dinhata – a small town in the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal – is known for many things, including its rich history. It houses palaces and temples that are known for their grandeur and grandeur, and is also the birthplace of many famous personalities, including the former President of Bangladesh, Hussain Mohammed Ershad. Deepak Sengupta (four-time Forward Block MLA and President of Dinhata Municipality), Manindra Ghosh, Jagdish Burman, Chitta Talukdar and Kanu De were among the freedom fighters who traveled from Dinhata in 1955 to Goa to participate in the liberation movement The place where Trinamool Congress chief was Mamata Banerjee It is trying to snatch it from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) when assembly elections are held around February 2022.
Currently, Dinhata is not in the news because of its complicated history or the well-known people associated with this place, but because of the by-election to be held here on October 30. Interestingly, Mamata Banerjee will be visiting Goa two days before the elections, probably to make people aware of Bengal’s contribution to her state’s liberation movement and the strong Dinhata connection.
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Dinhata is a battle for prestige for the BJP as it falls in north Bengal – the saffron party’s stronghold region, where it received overwhelming support in the 2019 parliamentary elections, helping it capture 18 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha constituencies. The assembly seat here was won this year by Union Minister of State (MoS) for Home Affairs Nisith Pramanik.
Pramanik, who defeated TMC’s Udayan Guha by 57 votes, is said to be very emotionally attached to Dinhata. He was one of the BJP MPs who won the April-May assembly elections, but later resigned as he wanted to remain at the Centre. He did not even take oath as an MLA after the election results were declared on May 2 and this necessitated a by-election in Dinhata. He later issued a statement saying that the central BJP leadership had asked him to continue as MP.
This time TMC has once again fielded Udayan Guha from Dinhata. The BJP leadership has reposed faith in Ashok Mandal to give competition to the ruling party’s candidate.
In 2011, Ashok Mandal was expelled from the Trinamool by Mamata Banerjee after he joined hands with an independent candidate, Mohammad Fazle Haque. There are allegations that he worked against the party line to deny him a ticket to contest the 2011 assembly elections on behalf of the TMC.
Ever since Mamata Banerjee came back to power on May 2, the defectors have been in line to make a comeback from the BJP to the Trinamool Congress.
Mukul Roy was the first to return in June, followed by Bishnupur MLA Tanmay Ghosh on 30 August and Baghda MLA Vishwajit Das on 31 August. BJP MLA from Kaliaganj Soumen Roy also joined TMC. The last time to switch was Krishna Kalyani, the BJP MLA from Raiganj. He resigned after the BJP sent him a show cause notice for speaking against the party’s Raiganj MP Debashree Choudhary.
BJP’s strength in the assembly has now come down to 70 as, apart from defectors, Jagannath Sarkar, who won Shantipur assembly seat in Nadia district and Nisith Pramanik, who won from Dinhata constituency, preferred to retain their Lok Sabha seats.
A senior BJP leader said, “The party has made Nisith Pramanik a minister of state for home. This is a very prestigious post and we would never want to see our candidate lose from Dinhata, which was won by Pramanik. If we lose this seat, it will not only be a setback for BJP but will also decide Pramanik’s political future in Bengal politics before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Speaking to News18.com, Udayan Guha exuded confidence of victory. He said, ‘Last time I lost this seat by a small margin but this time there will be no mistake. I do not want to comment on whether it is a fight for prestige for the BJP or not, but all I can say is that this time I am winning the Dinhata seat by a comfortable margin,” said the TMC candidate.
When contacted, Cooch Behar BJP District President Malti Rava targeted Trinamool. “The ruling party is terrorizing people, asking them not to vote for the BJP. We have informed the Election Commission (EC) and requested for free and fair elections. Last time we defeated TMC candidate Udayan Guha and this time also, if free and fair elections are held, we will defeat him again,” the BJP leader said.
The North Bengal region became a headache for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee after the TMC’s poor performance here in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Of the eight Lok Sabha seats here – Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, Raiganj, Balurghat, North Malda and South Malda – the Trinamool failed to win a single one. Seven out of eight seats went to BJP, while Malda South went to Congress.
However, in this year’s assembly elections, the TMC was able to recapture most of the seats in North Bengal and Nadia.
Jagannath Sarkar of BJP won the Shantipur assembly seat by defeating Ajay Dey of TMC by over 15,000 votes, and later left it to remain as MP. The bypoll to this seat in Nadia district is again a battle of prestige for the party as it is the constituency where the Matua community is a deciding factor. In 2019, Matua in Shantipur, which comes under the Ranaghat Lok Sabha constituency from where Sarkar is a MP, helped the saffron party win here. It is primarily a BJP stronghold and hence the party is leaving no stone unturned to win the seat and has fielded Vaishnav community leader Niranjan Biswas against TMC’s Brajkishore Goswami.
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Nadia BJP President Ashok Chakraborty firmly believes that the BJP is going to win this seat, as he says most voters are angry with the ruling party for its negligence towards the lower classes of the society. “I am sure our candidate will win with a good margin,” he said.
Apart from Dinhata and Shantipur, by-elections for Khardaha and Gosaba will also be held on October 30 after the death of TMC MLAs Kajal Sinha and Jayant Naskar. Counting of votes for all the four seats will be held on November 2.
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