After the recent setback in the Lok Sabha polls where the BJP got only 12 seats, the party is going all out to fight against the Trinamool Congress for the bypolls on July 10 in four assembly seats – Maniktala, Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin and Bagdah in West Bengal.
Of the four seats, Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin and Bagdah were won by the BJP in 2021 assembly polls but the three BJP MLAs had defected to Trinamool later while as Maniktala’s Trinamool MLA Sadhan Pande passed away which necessitated the bypolls. Trinamool has fielded late Pande’s wife Supti Pande from the seat this time, which is traditionally a Congress bastion.
On the last day of campaign today, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar and Leader of Opposition (LoP) campaigned together in Raiganj where Suvendu Adhikari said, “People of Raiganj will reply to Trinamool. Raiganj will vote for Sanatan dharma.”
Notably, the BJP had a substantial lead in the three assembly segments during the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls. In 2021, BJP’s Krishna Kalyani won in Raiganj, Mukut Moni Adhikari from the Ranaghat seat and Biswajit Das won the Bagdah seat. After defecting to Trinamool, in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the trio fought Lok Sabha seats on Trinamool tickets and all three were defeated. This time for the bypolls, BJP’s Adhikari campaigned aggressively on all the four seats going to bypolls.
For Lok Sabha polls, Kalyani fought from Raiganj and was defeated by BJPs Kartik Paul, Moni lost from Ranaghat against BJP’s Jagannath Sarkar while Das lost the Bongaon seat against Matua leader Shantanu Thakur.
