WHY DIDI GAVE UP BHAWANIPORE IN THE FIRST PLACE?
History repeats itself or is it Didi who repeats herself ? If politicians think they know it all, they should start believing that in politics anything/everything is possible AND... “yeh public hai yeh sab janti hai!”
On January 18, addressing a massive public rally at Tekhali in Nandigram Mamata had said, “Nandigram is close to my heart. I can forget my name but I cannot forget Nandigram. Considering the emotional attachment I have with the people of Nandigram, today I am announcing that I wish to contest the upcoming poll from Nandigram.” However, she later clarified that she is eager to contest from the Bhowanipore seat as well. "I would like to contest from both the seats because I feel that both Nandigram and Bhawanipore are like my sisters,” Mamata had said.
FPJ ANALYSIS
Nandigram, was once the epicentre of the farmers’ movement that propelled her and her party TMC to power in Bengal a decade ago. But in all these years, Suvendu had worked extra time to build “a base” in Nandigram.
By giving up Bhawanipore also she had sent out a message to her detractors that the battle-wary CM was confident enough to fight from one seat and win!
PROBABILITY NUMBER II:
From 2011 to 2016 she won the seat but her victory margin was down 29 per cent. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election as well, TMC got a lead of just 3,500 votes from the Bhawanipore seat under the South Kolkata Lok Sabha seat.
There are several reasons for the shift-in-seat poll plan before the May 2021 assembly poll. Mamata’s hometurf, Bhawanipore (south Kolkata), is the assembly seat she represented for two terms since 2011. It’s also part of her Kolkata South Lok Sabha seat from 1991 till 2009 but it’s no longer considered safe. Her party has been consistently trailing in the civic ward No. 73 in segment (Bhawanipore) since the 2014 Lok Sabha election. The margin is really wafer-thin, less than 1,000, recently. Moreover, there are several wards in Bhawanipore and Rashbehari constituency where the TMC was seen to be trailing in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The adjoining areas of Bhawanipore like in Chetla which is home-turf of mayor and urban development minister Firhad Hakim seems to be a difficult bouncing pitch. The vote margin of 14,000 with which Hakim had won from Chetla, ward number 82 in the civic body election held in 2019 came down to 1,100 by the 2019 Lok Sabha election in May.
The changing demography of South Kolkata has been attributed to the rise in Hindispeaking population — Punjabis, Gujaratis and Marwaris “have arrived” to take over old structures of the local Bengalis in these areas (Bhawanipore, Rashbehari), which are now replaced with high-end highrises.