• Murshidabad: Third 'fake' CPM agent caught by Salim at a booth in Mominpur High School
  
• Murshidabad: BJP candidate Gauri Shankar Ghosh alleges principal of a school assigned as presiding officer of a booth in the same school. Ghosh has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission
  
• Murshidabad: Salim catches second "fake" agent at a booth in Keshabpur, Raninagar
  
• Malda South: Trinamul alleges BJP candidate Srirupa Mitra Chowdhury is trying to influence voters
• Bengal records voter turnout of 15.85 % till 9 AM, according to election official
• Murshidabad: Scuffle between Mohammad Salim and Trinamul supporters at a village in Raninagar. Trinamul supporters shout Go back
  
• Murshidabad: Voters complain to Mohammad Salim they are not being allowed to go to the polling booths.
• Murshidabad's CPM candidate Mohammad Salim identifies "fake" CPM agent at a booth in Domkal, handed over to police.
• Jangipur: BJP nominee Dhananjay Ghosh escorts two BJP polling agents to a booth.
  
• Murshidabad: CPM nominee Mohammad Salim accuses the state police of protecting outsiders.
  

Scuffle between Mohammad Salim and Trinamul supporters at a village in Raninagar ScreenShot from ABP Ananda Footage

• Third phase polling: In Murshidabad's Domkal, bombs hurled at homes of Congress supporters allegedly by Trinamul workers
• CPM polling agent assaulted in Murshidabad's Raninagar
  
• Jangipur: Scuffle between BJP candidate Dhananjay Ghosh and Trinamul supporters at a booth in Suti
  

A "fake" polling agent caught by Mohammad Salim at Raninagar's Gopinathpur Shishu Kendra booth TT Online

• Maldah South BJP candidate Srirupa Mitra Chowdhury objects to presence of state police personnel inside booths at Englishbazar.

The four seats of Malda North, Malda South, Murshidabad and Jangipur that are voting on Tuesday in the third phase of the on-going Lok Sabha polls are where the hopes of the Left and the Congress in Bengal are pinned.

Since the Trinamul was formed in 2019, the party has never won a Lok Sabha seat in Malda. But both Jangipur and Murshidabad went to the party in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. For Mamata Banerjee, the third phase is a prestige battle to make inroads into Malda while retaining the two Lok Sabha seats it had wrested from the Congress last time in neighbouring Murshidabad.

TTO Graphics

That the BJP's Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and JP Nadda have addressed public meetings as part of the poll campaign underlines the importance of the four seats.

Malda South and Berhampore (which will go to polls in the next phase) are the two seats that the Congress had won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, while the Left returned empty-handed.

The most talked about Lok Sabha constituency in the third phase is Murshidabad from where CPM state secretary Mohammad Salim is among the nominees. During last year’s panchayat polls, the ruling Trinamul, which won 3,090 of the 5,589 panchayats in Murshidabad, was accused of unleashing a reign of terror.

During his roadshow in Krishnanagar on Monday, Union Home minister Amit Shah reminded voters of the presence of central security forces and urged them to come out and vote.

The Congress, however, had other things to say. “It is the duty of the central forces and the Election Commission to ensure the voters are able to vote freely. The Centre wants the people to believe they are doing some kind of favour by instructing forces and poll officials to act in an impartial manner,” said Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Bengal Congress president.

“Bombs are being recovered because they have been stockpiled. Without the police Trinamul is nothing. If they try to create any disturbance, Congress and Left workers are ready to foil it,” he said.

CPM candidate Salim, who is being backed by the Congress, echoed Chowdhury. “The first two phases have been relatively peaceful. In Murshidabad, in some booths the voters are being intimidated. We have set up a war room to take complaints in real time and pass on to EC officials,” said Salim. “During panchayat polls, in some places, the people had resisted Trinamul. The common people, along with the Left and Congress workers, are prepared to resist again,” he added.

Mohammad Salim at Domkal Murshidabad TT Online

Trinamul district president and MLA Apurba Sarkar asked voters not to fall for such statements. “We want to assure everyone that they will get to cast their votes in peace. There will be no trouble,” Sarkar said.

A decade ago, Murshidabad was one of two seats the CPM had won, the last time it had any electoral representation from Bengal in Parliament. In the ten years since, both the Trinamul and the BJP been fighting for the spoils in Malda and Murshidabad.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress and the Left (contesting separately) had polled 26.3 per cent and 12.6 per cent respectively, compared to the 42 per cent vote share of the Trinamul.

With the Congress and the CPM holding each other’s hands in this Lok Sabha polls, both parties sense a window of opportunity in winning back a section of the Muslim votes _ around 60 per cent in Murshidabad and 66.27 per cent in Jangipur.

In the 2021 Assembly polls, held under the shadow of the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register for Citizens, minority voters had voted en masse for the Trinamul, bringing the Congress down to zero members in the legislative assembly.

In her public meetings in Malda and Murshidabad, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has claimed publicly that Salim was contesting polls to eat into the Muslim votes and thus upset the Trinamul’s chances.

Salim’s nomination is a departure for the tradition-bound CPM, where those in organisational roles do not join the electoral fray.

Salim’s predecessor Surjya Kanta Mishra had contested and lost from his seat, Narayangarh, in the 2016 Assembly polls. In this general election, the Rajasthan CPM state secretary and peasants’ leader, Amra Ram, has also contested from Sikar.

There were indications of the Congress and CPM coming together in Murshidabad as earlt as in February when both Salim and CPM’s Dum Dum nominee Sujan Chakraborty joined Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.

Murshidabad itself holds an administrative challenge for the Election Commission as it is one of the most violent parts of the state. Just about a year ago, since the dates for the panchayat polls were announced till the results were declared, 15 lives were lost.

On the ground the Left and the Congress have shown improved coordination. In the first joint campaign held in Domkal – where Congress supporters and CPM cadres have been at each other’s throats for decades – Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, the Bengal Congress president, had asked the party workers to ensure the victory of “Salim bhai.”

The polling in the third phase will show whether a Left-Congress resurgence could actually happen and once again change the political landscape of Bengal.