Let’s turn the clock back by fourteen years.

The year is 2007. The Left Front Government of the day gloating from their stupendous success in the assembly polls a year back takes decisive steps to fast forward industrialisation in the state. At the epicenter of their Grand Plan lay Nandigram, a rural area in East Midnapore, where the Buddhadeb Bhattacharya government envisages an SEZ project and finds themselves pitchforked in the midst of an anti-land acquisition protest.

If the Nandigram episode were ever to be enacted on stage, the paragraph above would perhaps serve as a cue for TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee to enter the stage. For it was but the anti-land acquisition movement of Nandigram and Singur, that gave her political career a fresh lease of life after the drubbing in 2006 state polls. It can be safely stated that she did rise like a phoenix from the ‘bloody’ fields of Nandigram to breach the hitherto impregnable Left fortress of Bengal, unseating them in the 2011 assembly polls.

14 years later, Mamata Banerjee is back at Nandigram, fighting probably the toughest battle of her life as she faces anti-incumbency on the one hand and large-scale defections on the other. And while she has picked Nandigram as her chosen constituency, she would be facing on the other side, her one-time confidante and trusted lieutenant of the Nandigram struggle, Suvendu Adhikari. Adhikari, who cut ties with the TMC for greener pastures (read saffron) months back, is the sitting MLA from Nandigram.

Mamata Banerjee unveiled her party’s candidate list yesterday. She said that the TMC would be fighting on 291 seats, leaving the remaining 3 constituencies in Darjeeling for ‘friendly parties’. Moreover, TMC has ushered in 114 new faces, and dropped 28 MLAs in a bid to counter the anti-incumbency. 42 Muslim candidates have been given tickets.

While the Battle of Nandigram would most certainly grab much of the media attention in the days to come, here’s a look at 4 other crucial assembly constituencies/districts which may define the course of this election:

Barrackpore & adjoining constituencies:

The TMC has fielded noted film director Raj Chakraborty, known for remaking successful South Indian films from Barrackpore. Arjun Singh, the sitting BJP MP and an erstwhile TMC MLA defeated Dinesh Trivedi by over 14,000 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Trivedi himself is no longer with the Trinamool Congress rather he joined BJP on Saturday. In fact, Silbhadra Dutta, the outgoing Barrackpore MLA has already switched to the BJP. This Lok Sabha segment accounts for 6 other assembly constituencies apart from Barrackpore and has been a key focus for the Bharatiya Janata Party. BJP President JP Nadda and several other senior party leaders have already addressed rallies in Barrackpore. Instances of political violence, including the murder of a local BJP strongman in the run-up to the polls have kept this industrial belt on the edge.

Diamond Harbour & adjoining constituencies: Abhishek Banerjee’s Lok Sabha constituency Diamond Harbour accounts for 7 assembly segments. The young TMC lawmaker, who has been at the centre of the BJP’s ‘tolabaj bhaipo’ (extortionist nephew) jibe garnered over 56% of the votes in the 2019 parliamentary elections. An attack on the convoy of JP Nadda last year, while he was on his way to Diamond Harbour to address a rally left the BJP seething. The BJP alleges that the attack was carried by goons sponsored by the TMC. Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee claimed that the BJP themselves had staged the attack. Her nephew said the attack was a natural outpouring of public anger. So, in the light of all this, the BJP would be eyeing victory in all the assembly segments in Diamond Harbour, and interpret it as some sort of symbolic retribution for the TMC. On the other hand, Diamond Harbour would be more of a prestige issue for the Trinamool Congress as their de facto Number 2 is the sitting MP. The TMC had won all the 7 assembly seats in Diamond Harbour in 2016.

North & South Kolkata: It would not be much of an exaggeration if we refer to Kolkata as the bellwether district. The Trinamool Congress, which unseated the Left in 2011 won all 11 assembly seats. They repeated the feat again in 2016. Indeed, the road to Nabanna passes through the city. The city would go to polls in 2 phases.

North 24 Parganas: The largest district in West Bengal shares an international border with Bangladesh that stretches for about 230 kilometres. This makes North 24 Parganas one of the most pivotal battleground districts in an election as polarised as this one. BJP’s constant refrain of Mamata giving a free hand to illegal immigrants from across the Bangladesh border to bolster her vote bank helped the BJP wrest 2 out of the 5 Lok Sabha constituencies in North 24 Parganas in the 2019 parliamentary elections. This, by no way is a mean feat as the TMC had bagged all 5 in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act in December 2019 would be a crucial factor in the district.

The TMC has made its move. The ball is now in the BJP’s court. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to address at least 20 rallies in the state, starting with his address at the Kolkata Brigade Ground on March 7th.

Let the poll games begin.

First Published:Mar 6, 2021 3:51 PM IST