Congress versus the Congress versus the Congress. An intriguing battle
is playing out in Kolkata North where three veteran warhorses are engaged in a keen
contest.
Officially called Kolkata Uttar, the Lok Sabha constituency is one of Bengal’s youngest, having been formed post-delimitation in 2008, but it is spread over some of the metropolis’s oldest neighbourhoods — carrying in them pieces of the White Town as well as the Black Town of the British Raj.
Curiously, all three major contenders have a past or present association with the Congress, and are arguably as much representatives of the Bengali bhadrolok social class as the Grand Old Party’s co-founder and first president W.C. Bonnerjee — also a north Calcuttan — famously was.
The Trinamool Congress has fielded 75-year-old Sudip Bandyopadhyay, who has won the seat ever since it came into existence in 2009. He was in the Congress since the 1970s, till 1998, when he joined Mamata Banerjee’s Congress breakaway fledgling. His second stint with the Congress was between 2004 and 2008, over disagreements with her.
Trinamool candidate Sudip Bandhopadhyay's supporters at a road show in Paddapukur area of the Kolkata North constituency. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha
The BJP has nominated 67-year-old Tapas Roy, who defected from Trinamool this summer, over a number of grievances and differences with Bandyopadhyay. Roy was with the Congress from his teens till his 2001 induction into Mamata’s party.
For the Grand Old Party, it’s 79-year-old Pradip Bhattacharya — once a Young Turk in the Siddhartha Shankar Ray cabinet — with six decades of uninterrupted allegiance.
“Unlike the others, I have not switched parties or shifted loyalties. Calcutta still values decency, loyalty, and integrity — in life and in politics,” said Bhattacharya, underscoring the fact that almost every major icon in Bengal’s vast pantheon between the Renaissance and the freedom struggle were residents of the area now under the seat.
He is the only one among the trio who isn’t a resident of the constituency, and has been a neighbour for decades at 59A Palm Avenue to the post-Jyoti Basu Bengal Left’s poster boy, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
Congress candidate Pradip Bhattacharya with CPM veteran Biman Bose during a road show near Bowbazar
“If the elections are free, fair, and peaceful, there should not be any dearth of popular support,” added Bhattacharya, a former Rajya Sabha member whose candidature was backed by Mamata in 2017, when the Left had refused to play ball. This time, however, he stands fully endorsed by the Left.
The cosmopolitan seat comprises the Assembly segments of Chowrangee, Entally, Beleghata, Jorasanko, Shyampukur, Maniktala, and Kashipur-Belgachhia.
Five years ago, the Congress and the Left (contesting separately) had managed a combined vote share of 10.19 per cent in the constituency, compared to Trinamool’s 49.96 and the BJP’s 36.59.
Three years ago, in the Assembly elections, the Congress-Left vote share fell to 8 per cent in the seven seats taken together, while Trinamool (with 58.7) won all of them, and the BJP (29.6 per cent) finished second in each.
Of the 60 wards of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation that make up the parliamentary seat, the BJP had led in 20 in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019, but managed to win only three in the civic polls of 2021 — two in Jorasanko, one in Chowrangee. The Congress and the Left won none.
“Under Mamata Banerjee, south Calcutta has always been unduly favoured. It is time to change that. The people of the north desire it, and are willing to act on it,” said BJP’s Roy.
“Trinamool is banking primarily on minority support, but they have been deserting her (Mamata),” he added, wary of the fact that one out of every five electors in the seat
is Muslim.
Additionally, in the constituency that stretches from Cossipore in the north to Topsia in the south, there are around 2 per cent from various other minority communities, such as Sikhs, Buddhists, and Christians. It also has around 5.5 per cent Scheduled Castes, and a negligible (less than 0.5 per cent) population of Scheduled Tribes.
Tapas Roy, BJP candidate for Kolkata North, touches upon graffiti in his name on Amherst St. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha
A BJP functionary handling key responsibilities in campaign management admitted on the condition of anonymity that they don’t expect a spectacular performance in Kolkata North.
“Outside Shyampukur, Jorasanko, and Chowrangee, there isn’t much joy likely for us… and that probably won’t be enough to win,” he said.
“Sadly, most in the urban centres like Calcutta still consider the BJP a party of the so-called bohiragawto (outsiders); and our internal assessments suggest (Narendra) Modi magic isn’t really a factor here,” he added. “And frankly, Tapasda is yet to be accepted as BJP even within the BJP.”
However, a Trinamool insider with no love lost for Bandyopadhyay said Mamata’s decision to back him despite bitter resistance from various quarters in the party — some purportedly with the blessings of her nephew and heir-apparent Abhishek Banerjee — has not gone down well with several sections.
“Tapasda remains well-loved.… I’m not predicting sabotage, but I am not ruling it out,” he said.
Fully aware of this, the chief minister has been conducting programme after programme for Kolkata Uttar since the end of the fifth phase on May 20, and has made no bones about how the seat’s electoral outcome is also a matter of her own prestige; underscoring that this would be Bandyopadhyay’s last general election.
Trinamool leader Kunal Ghosh — whose fondness for Roy and distaste for Bandyopadhyay is one of the ruling party’s worst-kept secrets — said none of this would matter on June 1.
“People who vote for Trinamool do so for Mamata Banerjee, and not on the basis of the candidate,” said Ghosh, widely deemed an Abhishek mouthpiece.
Does any of this worry the man in question?
“I have been contesting all my life, in various elections, from areas that are part of
this constituency,” said Bandyopadhyay.
“I do not lose sleep over defeat, only the scale of the margin of my victory,” he added.
Kolkata Uttar votes on June 1
