West Bengal is set to witness high voltage political slugfest over the next few days with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah raising poll pitch in the election-bound State and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee planning to address counter-rallies.
Mamata will address her counter rallies at places where Central BJP leaders including the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and BJP national president JP Nadda will hold their meetings.
Accordingly Mamata will hold a rally at Chinsurah in Hooghly district a day after Modi addresses a rally on February 22. Whereas the Chief Minister and her nephew and MP Abhishek Banerjee will hold simultaneous rallies at South 24 Parganas where Shah will hold rallies on Friday. .
Shah will reach Kolkata on Wednesday and flag off the BJP’s fifth and final parivartan rath yatra from Namkhana in South 24 Parganas on Thursday. On the other hand, the PM is expected to hold a public rally in Hooghly on February 22 after inaugurating the 4-km extension of the city’s north-south Metro corridor from Noapara to Dakshineshwar on February 22.
The fifth rath yatra will pass through the prestigious constituencies of Diamond Harbour and South Kolkata. The first one is represented by Abhishek Banerjee, while Mamata Banerjee is the MLA of Bhawanipur Assembly constituency in South Kolkata.
The rally is likely to proceed through Sirakol in Diamond Harbour where the convoy of BJP national president JP Nadda was attacked on December 10, 2020.
About 20 per cent booths of Bengal are violence prone, sources quoting the EC said, adding the poll panel is making an elaborate arrangement to ensure free and fare polls.
Bengal will to polls in a couple of months from now. According to EC sources, about 18,801 booths have been identified as highly sensitive whereas “about 50 per cent of total numbers of booths are critical.”
The State has more than 1 lakh booths.
In 2016 and 2019 elections Bengal had 78,903 polling booths. However, considering pandemic situation the EC has increased the number of booths to 101,790. Considering about 30 per cent rise in the number of booths the poll panel has decided to deploy a record 1 lakh Central security personnel in the State which is about 25,000 more than what it was in 2019 or 2016 elections.
According to sources the Commission has identified five districts as highly sensitive and is taking measures accordingly. These districts are Murshidabad, Nadia, South 24 Parganas, Hooghly and East Midnapore. While in Murshidabad the ruling TMC is likely to get a stiff challenge from the Left-Congress combine in the remaining four places the TMC will have a tough fight with the BJP.