TMC Fields Youth Leader Bapi Haldar From Mathurapur As The Successor Of Veteran And Sitting MP C.M. Jatua (image-facebook/Bapi Haldar.president, sunderban TMYC)
While the former Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Choudhary Mohan Jatua, has refrained from contesting in the upcoming elections given his old age, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has nominated Bapi Haldar from the Mathurapur Lok Sabha constituency of West Bengal. Mr. Haldar is the party’s youth leader of the Sunderban organisational district.
Last year, the CPI (M) accused the TMC of kidnapping four candidates from the opposition parties (3 from the BJP and an individual candidate) to form the Panchayat. CPI (M) leader and former Bengal minister Kanti Ganguly filed a complaint against Bapi Haldar at the Panchasayar police station. Ganguly claimed that a mob of 25 to 30 individuals was led by Haldar, the husband of Panchayat Pradhan of TMC. Ganguly alleged that Mr. Haldar had pressurised the opposition candidates to support TMC to form the board, reported India Today. Denying the allegations, Mr. Haldar said that the complaint was baseless and lacked credibility.
In the past, the Lok Sabha constituency has witnessed the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) maintaining its stronghold from 1967 to 1984, which was broken by Congress. However, the grand old party could not retain the seat for long as CPI (M) won the subsequent elections from 1989 to 2009 with its five-time MP Radhika Ranjan Pramanick. But in 2009, TMC candidate and now 85-year-old Mr. Jatua shattered the winning streak of 25 years of the CPI (M).
In the 2019 elections, Mr. Jatua secured an overwhelming victory with 7.2 lakh votes, while BJP candidate Shyama Prasad Halder came in second with 5.2 lakh votes, and CPI’s Dr. Sarat Chandra Halder only managed 92,417 votes.
Reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs), the Mathurapur Lok Sabha constituency comprises Vidhan Sabhas such as Patharpratima, Kakdwip, Sagar, Kulpi, Raidighi, Mandirbazar (SC reserved), and Magrahat Paschim, which have elected members of the TMC as their MLAs.
With the Muslim community (35.57 percent) and SC population (30.2 percent) making up half the population in the constituency, the Mathurapur Lok Sabha seat’s fate depends on the minority communities’ hands.
