TMC ministers break into jig after Phase 1 polling, say confident of win

With polling set to conclude in the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal, state Ministers Shashi Panja and Chandrima Bhattacharya were seen holding hands and breaking into a dance to the tune of a popular Hemant Mukherjee song in Bengali at a Trinamool Congress (TMC) party office in Kolkata.
While Panja is the Minister of Women and Child Development in the state, Bhattacharya holds the portfolio of Minister of State of Health and Family Welfare in West Bengal. The leaders expressed confidence that their party will win all three Lok Sabha constituencies in the state.
Bhattarcharya said the BJP, sensing defeat, claimed they were attacked during polling.
“BJP has understood that they are losing. Their loss is confirmed because the people of West Bengal know how they have been deprived of their rights. They have understood that they will lose. Those who lose say things like they were attacked before the media. It has been confirmed that our candidates are winning in all three Lok Sabha constituencies (Alipurduar, Cooch Behar, and Jalpaiguri),” the TMC Minister said.
Bhattacharya said the voter turnout in the three constituencies shows how the polls were conducted peacefully in the state.
“The polling happened peacefully and the BJP did not like it. They thought that they would engage us in clashes and create an ambience where people would be scared to come out and vote. Look at the vote percentage. This goes to show how the polling went off peacefully,” Bhattacharya said.
The three parliamentary constituencies–Coochbehar, Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri–all of which were won by the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, voted on Friday in the first phase of the general elections.
While Alipurduar recorded 75.54 per cent voter turnout, Coochbehar recorded 77.73 per cent and Jalpaiguri recorded 79.33 per cent as of 5 pm.
BJP’s Nisith Pramanik was pitted against the Trinamool Congress’ Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia in Coochbehar. The Congress fielded Piya Roy Chowdhury from the seat while the Forward Bloc fielded Nitish Chandra Roy.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Pramanik won 48 per cent votes against 44.4 per cent of TMC’s Paresh Chandra Adhikari.
In Alipurduar, a Scheduled Tribes (ST) reserved seat, BJP’s Manoj Tigga was fielded against TMC’s Prakash Chik Baraik.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BJP’s John Barla won the seat defeating TMC’s Dasrath Tirkey. While Barla got 54.4 per cent of votes, Tirkey secured 36.7 per cent votes.
In Jalpaiguri, BJP’s sitting MP Jayanta Kumar Roy was contesting against TMC’s Nirmal Chandra Ray. Communist Party of India (Marxist) has also fielded Debraj Barman from Jalpaiguri.
In 2019, Jayanta Kumar Roy won the seat, defeating Trinamool’s Bijoy Chandra Barman. While Roy got 50.6 per cent votes, Barman accrued 38.4 per cent.
Polling in the 42 parliamentary constituencies in West Bengal will be held across all seven phases–April 19, April 26, May 4, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1. The counting of votes has been scheduled for June 4.
Though the TMC is part of the INDIA bloc, it does not have a seat-sharing arrangement in the state with the other parties in the alliance–the Congress and the Left parties.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the TMC won 34 seats in the state, while the BJP had to settle for 2 seats. The CPI (M) won 2 seats, while the Congress bagged 4. However, the BJP came up with a much-improved showing in the 2019 polls, winning 18 seats against the TMC’s 22. The Congress’s tally dropped to just 2 seats, while the Left scored a blank