Bengal gears up for final bout as 9 seats head to booths tomorrow

Will 'Vidyasagar' do the trick for Mamata in the most violent state this poll season?

mamata-bjp-salil Five of the nine seats going to polls on Sunday have a large number of urban voters who would vote thinking of whether to chose Narendra Modi or Mamata Banerjee | Salil Bera

With a heat wave gripping south Bengal post cyclone Fani, Kolkata has been sweltering over the past few days. Coupled with the high-voltage and dramatic election wave, mercury levels have seen an unprecedented rise in Kolkata in the run up to the final phase of the Lok Sabha polls. 

Intense battle will be witnessed in all nine seats that are headed to polling booths in Bengal during the last phase of elections on Sunday. The nine seats include two from Kolkata—Kolkata North and Kolkata South. Historically, the two seats were bastions of centrist politics—earlier, it was the Congress and currently, the Trinamool Congress (TMC). And hence, the million dollar question that everyone asks is: "Will the lotus bloom in the heart of Kolkata?"

Three of the remaining seven seats—Jadavpur, Dum Dum and Barasat—also have a Kolkata connection. While a few areas of south Kolkata are part of the Jadavpur constituency, several parts of north Kolkata constitute Dum Dum and Barasat.

While Dum Dum includes former Left bastions such as Dum Dum town and Baranagar town, Kolkata's first satelite town Salt Lake falls under Barasat.

This means that five of the nine seats have a large number of urban voters who would vote after choosing between Narendra Modi and Mamata Banerjee. Mamata's prime ministerial ambitions were overplayed during election campaigns by her party leaders across West Bengal. They lifted the spirit of the election campaigns by instilling in Bengalis a hope to have its first prime minister. 

However, Mamata is yet to clearly indicate her chances of becoming the prime minister. When asked about the same during a recent padayatra in Kolkata, she clarified that the "people would decide the (next) prime minister".

At the same time, she is moving her cards swiftly and carefully by effectively utilising the issue of vandalism of the Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar statue that took place during Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata early this week. TMC is of the opinion that this would create a negative impact against the BJP in and around Kolkata.

Taking her mode of attack a step further, Mamata penned down a poem about the incident and circulated it among the regional media. Notably, the two-month long election campaign also saw Mamata garnering the maximum support among Bengali newspapers and news channels, compared to the past few years, though her opponents alleged that "she has controlled the local media using the chief minister's office".

That said, barring the Vidyasagar issue, the BJP has a good chance of winning in Kolkata North, while it is all set to give a tough fight to TMC in Dum Dum and two of the three seats in South 24 Parganas—Mathurapur and Jaynagar. Diamond Harbour, the third seat in South 24 Parganas, is being contested by sitting TMC MP and Mamata's nephew Abhishek Banerjee.

The BJP said it would try to win all the nine seats. The saffron party might end up winning at least four of them. "Our attempt in this election has been to give a good fight in all 42 seats. We will cross the half-way mark in Bengal," said Biswapriya Roy Choudhury, BJP West Bengal vice president.

However, all depends on how cadres play it up on the polling day as Bengal has turned out to be the most violence-prone state in India so far this election season. Incidents of violence marred all the six phases that were held in the state. It is being anticipated that May 19 would not be an exception.

As a precaution, the Central Armed Police Force is making deep inroads into villages and remote areas of Bengal. They are raiding hotels and taking note of the presence of outsiders in the hotels. Movements of leaders from both the parties are being monitored. But despite that, TMC would have a slight edge over other parties at the booth-level.

The BJP has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission that TMC was all set to influence the voters through their policy of intimidation. TMC, on other hand, blamed the BJP for buying votes as several crores of rupees were seized by police from "BJP workers". It has been a fight between muscle power and money power in Bengal of lately, and the last phase of election is no different.