Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, the Trinamul Congress candidate from Barasat, secured a ticket to the Parliament for the fourth consecutive term, with an increased lead over her nearest rival. Her lead over Swapan Majumdar of the BJP, who also happens to be the Bongaon South MLA, came to 1,14,189, up by 4,020 votes from the 2019 figure. The other eye-popping statistic from Barasat is the emergence of Indian Secular Front as the third party, with its candidate Tapas Banerji overtaking the Left Front choice, Sanjib Chatterjee of Forward Bloc.
However, a lead in the Bidhannagar Assembly constituency continues to elude Trinamul for the third time. The Barasat Parliamentary seat comprises seven Assembly constituencies — Bidhannagar, Rajarhat New Town, Madhyamgram, Habra, Ashoknagar, Barasat and Deganga. Ghosh Dastidar has conceded a lead of 11,156, in Bidhannagar, of which Salt Lake contributed 8,107. The Bidhannagar seat also includes 10 wards under the South Dum Dum Municipality.
BJP supporters watch election coverage on a giant screen at a temporary camp set up near the counting centre in Barasat Sudeshna Banerjee
In the area under the erstwhile Bidhannagar Municipality, Trinamul managed to get a lead in only four of the 14 wards, which are all in the added areas and the Duttabad slum. Ward 40, with Labony Abasan, EC Block and CPWD Quarters, has gone neck and neck, with BJP emerging on top by only 39 votes. The biggest margin came from Ward 36, comprising added areas like Chhaynabhi and Naobhanga, where Trinamul took a lead of 2,555 votes. The BJP’s biggest lead came from Corporation chairperson Sabyasachi Dutta’s Ward 31, comprising AE, BE, CE, DE, BF, CF and DF Blocks — of 2,138 votes.
How the wards voted in Salt Lake
But the party is taking heart from the reduction in the margin from the 2019 figure of 18,916. This time Ghosh Dastidar has erased the deficit from the Assembly constituency area by 7,760 votes, bringing it down to 11,156. “The margin is less this time,” Ghosh Dastidar told The Telegraph Salt Lake as she waited for the winner’s certificate in the party office a stone’s throw away from Barasat College, the counting centre, on Tuesday.
Trinamul Congress had tried hard to erase the deficit. Ghosh Dastidar had praised Bose, the local MLA, for the effort he was putting in on the campaign trail during her pre-election interview to The Telegraph Salt Lake. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee herself headed a rally on foot on May 25, in the last lap before polling, from BF-CF ground down First Avenue with bete noires Bose and Sabyasachi Dutta behind her, putting up a united front. Corporation mayor Krishna Chakraborty put in an emotional appeal to a select gathering she hosted in an air-conditioned banquet in her ward, urging residents gathered to give Ghosh Dastidar “a margin of at least one vote” for the sake of her own prestige. Her plea does not seem to have worked, with the lead from Ward 29, where she is the local councillor, increasing from 1,535 in 2019 to 2,118 this time.
Over the last year or so, Ghosh Dastidar said she had started to interact at the block level with residents in Salt Lake. “I had even sent a snake catcher once to Labony. That is hardly the MP’s job but once I learnt about the problem, I immediately did the needful. I have also funded installation of CCTV cameras on streets to help with policing. People have taken note of such actions,” she said.
As for New Town, the BJP got a lead of 3,389 votes in the polling booths in the NKDA area. There was public grievance at the way voters had been refused access to polling booths in the panchayat election last year on July 8. As reported by The Telegraph Salt Lake on April 26, Ghosh Dastidar apologised for that in an indoor meeting with residents in New Town CE Block. The party did get a lead of 28,417 votes in the Assembly seat, Rajarhat New Town, which also includes vast swathes of Rajarhat.
