Come Saturday Bengal goes to yet another crucial municipal election, the last such exercise to test the strength of arch rivals Trinamool Congress and the left Front before the next year’s Assembly elections.
Though the number of municipalities are quite insignificant in comparison to the State-wide civic elections that took place in April this year, the rival sides have employed their full strength to dent each other’s positions.
Up for the grabs are 106 wards of Asansol and 41 wards of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporations. This apart 14 wards of Bally municipality, which have been tagged with Howrah Corporation, will also go to polls. In addition, elections will also be held in the Siliguri Sub-division Board in North Bengal, where a substantial number of rural people will participate.
While Asansol Corporation has been created by clubbing Kulti, Jamuria and Raniganj with Asansol municipality, Bidhanangar Corporation was formed by merging the two municipalities of Rajarhat-Gopalpur an area with sizeable minority population and Bidhannagar proper — more prominently known as Salt lake.
While the polls are being held without any central forces triggering fears of large-scale violence and booth-capturing a la the April elections both sides have made elaborate preparations with the left even calling for an opposition unity to resist Trinamool terror during the election day and the other parties like the Congress and the BJP backing the initiative.
The results will be declared on October 16. While in Bidhanagar the Trinamool’s fight is led by State Minister JP Mullick and party MlAs and strongmen like Sabyasachi Dutta, Tapas Chatterjee and Sujit Basu in Asansol the BJP led by Union Minister babul Supriyo is giving the Bengal ruling party a strong fight.
In Siliguri, the Trinamool is getting tough challenge from former State Minister and CPI(M) leader Ashok Bhattacharya who had barely a few months ago wrested back Siliguri Corporation from the ruling party by organizing an all party opposition during the poll day to resist the Trinamool violence.
On the questions of an atmosphere of violence Mullick said “there is no such situation and the people will vote for Mamata Banerjee. By talking of violence the left have conceded their defeat even before the polls are held.”
However senior left leaders like Gautam Deb complained of massive mobilization of “armed outsiders” in Bidhannagar to stop people from voting. “All the guest houses have been filled by armed outsiders and the State Election Commission has not taken any step despite
repeated complaints,” he said adding the left would however give the Trinamool a tough challenge.
Already reports of attacks on opposition workers have come from Bidhannagar, Asansol and Bally sources said.