KOLKATA: For the first time in over half-a-decade, Trinamool on Sunday swept to victory in all the eight Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) wards in Bhowanipore, considered a tricky constituency for the party as 44% of the electorate of the area are non-Bengali-speaking people.
The party would usually hit a block in two of the wards, but it finally broke the jinx this time. This hurdle for Trinamool from this constituency was first revealed in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, when the BJP took a lead in the Bhowanipore assembly segment with 185 votes. “This time, the people of Bhowanipore voted us to victory in all the wards. Even in the 2016 assembly election, we had trailed in one or two wards, but not this time. I thank all of you for that. I sincerely thank the people of Bhowanipore and the entire country who had rooted for us,” said Mamata Banerjee after the election results were declared. She won by 58,389 votes, beating her own 2011 record of 54,213.
Since 2011, Trinamool’s trouble point among the eight wards in the constituency has primarily been wards 70 and 74, where they had always trailed in assembly elections. In the Lok Sabha election, the situation worsened with the party trailing in six out of the eight wards. Back in 2014, Subrata Bakshi had lost the Bhowanipore segment under Kolkata South by 185 votes but was saved with a handsome margin in the other six segments to win the election.
But this time, Trinamool won a lead of 1,782 votes at Ward 70, comprising Puddapukur and Chakraberia areas, and 4,979 votes’ lead at Ward 74, which covered the Alipore neighbourhood. In the 2021 assembly election, the party had trailed by 2,078 votes in Ward 70 and by 446 votes in Ward 74. “Didi and Abhishek Banerjee called me to her home on Sunday and personally congratulated me. She said I had finally given her a win from my constituency. Despite working very hard through the years, we had trailed from Ward 70 in the last three elections. In 2021, the trail was by 2,078 votes, in 2019, the deficit was of 4,500 votes and in 2016, the trail was of around 450 votes. But this time, I had promised her that we would win from this ward and I had kept my promise,” said Asim Basu, the co-ordinator of Ward 70.
The trickier of the two wards was 74, where a majority of the electorate comprised non-Bengali speaking population living in high-rises of Alipore. Trinamool, which had consistently trailed from the area, had a dramatic turnaround with 4,979 vote recovery. The party reportedly changed its poll tactics while dealing with this ward and fielded fresh faces. Educated women, led by minister Firhad Hakim’s daughters Priyadarshini and Shabba, personally managed the door-to-door campaign this time. “We just did our bit for the party and our leader Mamata Banerjee in taking her message to high-rise residents. The rest was done by the people of this ward and we are sincerely thankful to them and consider it a blessing,” said Priyadarshini, who had visited every high-rise in the constituency during the election campaign.
But while there was a large swing in margins in six wards of Bhowanipore, the two wards that have historically voted in favour of Trinamool in all the elections-—wards 77 and 82—yet again threw up the largest margins. Ward 77, consisting of areas like Ekbalpore and Kidderpore, gave a margin of 21,679 votes and Ward 82, comprising Chetla and Gopalnagar, accounted for a margin of 13,111 votes with BJP candidate Priyanka Tibrewal. “We had a lower poll percentage from our area this time than that in the previous election but that didn’t stop us from giving a lead of 21,679 votes for the party,” said Serajul Karim, a senior party worker in the area.
Banerjee’s home turf, where Trinamool had trailed in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by 496 votes, was won by Sovandeb Chatterjee in the assembly election five months ago. Banerjee only consolidated this lead to 5,889 votes, the fourth biggest margin among the eight wards. Its neighbouring Ward 71 gave Banerjee a 6,099 vote lead and Ward 63 (counted first) gave a lead of 2,336 votes.
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