West Bengal: TMC Nominates Prakash Chik Baraik From Alipurduar (image-X/ChikPrakash)

Trinamool Congress (TMC) has nominated Prakash Chik Baraik to contest in the elections from the ST reserved Alipurduar. He will be facing off against the against the BJP”s Manoj Tigga, who defeated the TMC’s Padam Lama in the Legislative Assembly elections of West Bengal in 2016.

Mr. Baraik, the Rajya Sabha MP elected unopposed, is the local face of TMC in North Bengal’s tea belt. Although the party has secured wins in South Bengal, its influence in North Bengal has witnessed a decline. However, the party has instilled its hopes in Mr. Baraik to strengthen TMC support in the tea-estate districts.

Mr. Baraik’s rise in district politics started in 2021 when he became the district president of Alipurduar for TMC. The party tasted success in the Alipurduar and Falakata municipality elections as well as the Panchayat election.

In an affidavit filed by Tigga declaring his movable assets, amounting to Rs 27 lakh, it was also mentioned that there were six pending criminal cases against him, although he has not been convicted in any of them. He is the current MLA from the assembly constituency of Madarihat.

While the communist party called the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) had won the seat from 1977 until 2009, the party’s stronghold was broken by TMC’s Dasrath Tirkey in the 2014 elections. Tirkey won with 3.6 lakh votes, beating RSP’s Manohar Tirkey, who won 3.4 lakh votes.

However, the seat did not last long with TMC. The BJP”s John Barla secured a landslide victory over the seat in the 2019 elections by securing 7.5 lakh seats. TMC’s Tirkey managed to win 5 lakh votes.

Reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs), the Alipurduar Lok Sabha constituency comprises Vidhan Sabhas including Tufanganj, Kalchini (ST), Alipurduar, Falakata (SC), Madarihat (ST), Nagrakata (ST), and Kumaragram (ST). All the segments have MLAs from the BJP.