Fate of 88 candidates in Bengal’s seven LS seats to be sealed on Monday
Kolkata: The fate of 88 candidates will be sealed on Monday in the fifth phase of elections in seven Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal.
The prominent candidates include Union Minister Shantanu Thakur from Bangaon, BJP’s tough-man Arjun Singh from Barrackpore and two actor-turned-politicians Locket Chatterjee of BJP and Rachana Banerjee of Trinamool Congress and both are contesting against each other from Hooghly.
The seven Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal that are going to polls on May 20 include Hooghly, Arambagh and Serampore in Hooghly district, Barrackpore and Bangaon in North 24 Parganas district and Howrah and Uluberia in Howrah district.
Of the 88 candidates in these seven Lok Sabha constituencies, the maximum number is from Bangaon at 15, followed by Barrackpore and Howrah at 14 each, Uluberia and Hooghly at 12 each, Serampore at 11 and Arambagh at 10.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP candidates got elected from Hooghly, Barrackpore and Bangaon, while Trinamool Congress candidates won in the remaining four.
This time BJP is confident of snatching the Arambagh constituency from Trinamool Congress where the winning margin of the ruling party candidate in 2019 was little over 1,000 votes, besides retaining the three they won in 2019.
As part of the Congress-Left Front alliance in West Bengal this time, Congress is contesting from Uluberia and Bangaon, while CPI(M) has fielded candidates from the remaining five.
Over 57 per cent of the booths in these seven Lok Sabha constituencies have been identified as sensitive as against little over 23 per cent for eight constituencies that went to the polls in the fourth phase on May 13.
In this phase, Hooghly has the highest number of sensitive booths at 87 per cent followed by Arambagh at 85 per cent. Barrackpore has the third highest number of sensitive booths 67 per cent, followed by Serampore at 60 per cent.
Considering the higher number of sensitive booths, the Election Commission has decided to increase the Central Armed Forces deployment by around 32 per cent over what it was in the fourth phase.