A mega fight between two heavyweights -- former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi of the Trinamool Congress and new BJP recruit and "Bahubali" leader Arjun Singh -- and an intense aunt-nephew contest in the first family of the highly influential Scheduled Caste community Matua Mahasangh would be the highlights of the phase five Lok Sabha battle in West Bengal on Monday.
Seven constituencies -- Barrackpore, Bangaon, Howrah, Uluberia, Sreerampur, Hooghly and Arambagh -- are up for grabs on the morrow, in what is regarded as the core area of the state's ruling Trinamool Congress on the doorsteps of Kolkata.
An electorate of around 1,16,72,144 will decide the fate of 83 candidates by casting their choice in 13,290 polling stations.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress had triumphed in all the seven seats, bulldozing the opposition.
However, this time the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- a rising force in the state -- is making a determined bid to challenge Trinamool's authority in the seven seats spread over three districts -- Howrah, Hooghly and North 24 Parganas -- adjoining Kolkata.
In North 24 Parganas' Barrackpore, former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi is taking on his erstwhile "election-manager" Arjun Singh, who crossed over to the BJP in March after he was denied the ticket from Barrackpore by the Trinamool leadership, which reposed faith in Trivedi, a two-time sitting MP from the seat.
Singh's desertion has made cosmopolitan Barrackpore -- an industrial belt with 35-40 per cent non-Bengali voters mostly working in the jute mills and 17 per cent people from the minority community -- an eye-grabbing seat with 15 candidates in fray.
However, Trivedi considers Singh of little significance.
"People will prioritise pens over pistols. No one will vote for a mafia who has been slapped with almost all sections of the Indian Penal Code. Elections are for development and people will vote us for the development works undertaken by the Trinamool government and its local team," Trivedi said.
Singh, on the other hand, said he was "200 per cent sure" of victory as people "hardly knew Trivedi who may finish third".
While both the candidates are canvassing aggressively for votes, the CPI-M is hoping to emerge as the proverbial dark horse in Barrackpore, banking on Singh's ability to eat into Trinamool votes.
"The situation is ripe for our (CPI-M) victory. There is an ant-establishment wind blowing against the Trinamool and the BJP, which are in power in the state and the Centre, respectively. With Singh likely to cut majorly into the Trinamool votes, we are at an advantage," said CPI-M candidate Gargi Chatterjee.
The Congress has fielded Mohammad Alam from Barrackpore.
In Bangaon, sitting MP Mamatabala Thakur of the Trinamool -- the present head of the Matua Mahasangh -- is being challenged by her nephew-in-law and BJP aspirant Shantanu Thakur.
Matua Mahasangha, considered to be Bengal's second most influential Scheduled Caste community comprising primarily low-caste Hindu refugees from Bangladesh, has over one crore members spread over various south Bengal districts, especially the North 24 Parganas.
Shantanu is the son of former Minister Manjul Krishna Thakur, who is the brother of Mamatabala's late husband Kapil Krishna.
Shantanu, who sustained head injury after a car with a police sticker hit his vehicle on Saturday, is presently admitted to hospital with the BJP alleging a conspiracy to "kill him."
A total of 10 candidates, including Alakesh Das of the CPI-M and the Congress' Sourav Prasad, are battling it out in the seat close to the India-Bangladesh border.
The other star candidates in the fifth phase of polling include sitting Trinamool MPs lawyer Kalyan Banerjee (Sreerampore) and former footballer Prasun Banerjee (Howrah), while the BJP has nominated actress-turned-politician Locket Chatterjee (Hooghly) and senior journalist Rantidev Sengupta (Howrah).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President Amit Shah and Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee were among the star campaigners for the phase.
The Election Commission has decided to deploy central paramilitary forces in all the polling stations for Monday's polling.
According to an analysis done by the West Bengal Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms, 15 candidates have assets worth over Rs 1 crore, with 23 declaring criminal cases against themselves.
The subsequent phases of polling in the state will be held on May 12 and May 19. Polling in 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal have been completed in the first four phases.
The votes will be counted on May 23.
--IANS
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