Finally, Congress president Sonia Gandhi took the “most crucial decision” vis-à-vis her party’s electoral battle in Bengal directing former Union Minister Deepa Dasmunshi to contest against none other than Mamata Banerjee apparently making the going a tad difficult for the Bengal Chief Minister.
Dasmunshi — more commonly known as Boudi or elder brother’s wife — the better half of ailing Congress leader PR Dasmunshi will contest Banerjee from her Bhawanipore Assembly seat in South Kolkata where the Trinamool Congress had incidentally trailed to the BJP by a few hundred votes in the 2014 general elections.
Banerjee’s only consolation seems to be the fact that the BJP has also fielded a candidate to reckon with in the form of Chandra Bose the grand nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose — a factor that the local Trinamool leadership considers could help in division of Opposition votes.
Pradesh Congress president Adhir Chwodhury on Friday said that the Congress president had asked Dasmunshi to contest against Mamata Banerjee “to which she has agreed.” Earlier senior PCC member OP Mishra had volunteered to contest from the seat. He is likely to be transferred to some other seat, sources said.
Chowdhury also said that among other prominent Congress candidates who were likely to contest the polls were Abdul Mannan from Champdani in Hooghly, Shankar Singh from Ranaghat South, Krishna Debnath from Ballygunge, Arunabha Ghosh from Bidhannagar and “either Somen Mitra or his wife” from Chowrunghee seats.
The Congress and the left had a seat adjustment in these elections and would support each other in all but about 10-11 seats.