West Bengal: TMC's Jagdish Chandra Bansunia Nominated From Cooch Behar (image-X/BasuniaChandra)

Once ruled by several kings, West Bengal”s Cooch Behar is renowned for its palaces, including the Cooch Behar Royal Palace. For the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Trinamool Congress (TMC) has nominated its candidate Jagdish Chandra Barma Bansunia from the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat. He will be facing against BJP”s candidate and sitting MP Nisith Pramanik.

Jagdish Chandra Barma was elected as a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly from Sital in 2021. He graduated with a bachelor”s degree from North Bengal University in 1983. He also has a degree in bachelors of physical education from Amaravati University in 1988.

In Cooch Behar Lok Sabha constituency, there are nine vidhan sabhas, such as Mathabhanga, Cooch Behar Uttar (North), Cooch Behar Dakshin (South), Sitalkuchi, Sital, Dinhata, Mekhiliganj, and Natabari. Except for the last two assembly segments, all are reserved for the Scheduled Caste (SC) community, which constitutes over 48.6 percent of the voter base, according to the 2011 census. The Rajbanshis constitute 62 percent of the population.

In the late 1950s, Congress and the All India Forward Bloc were the two major parties facing each other in the Cooch Behar seat. All India Forward’s Amar Roy Pradhan secured the seat from 1977 to 1999. It was in 2014 when the Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidate late Renuka Sinha finally made his entry and won the seat by securing 5.2 lakh votes. Following Sinha’s death, in the 2016 by-elections, TMC’s Partha Pratim Roy took the mantle and won by an overwhelming 7.9 lakh votes. The BJP”s Hem Chandra Barman only managed to secure 3.8 lakh votes, coming in second.

But in 2019, the BJP nominated Nisith Pramanik, who was expelled by the TMC, who won with 7.3 lakh votes, beating the TMC”s Paresh Chandra Adhikary, who won 6.7 lakh votes.

Notably, there are 26.3 percent of voters from the Muslim community.

On Tuesday night, members of the TMC and BJP clashed in Dinhata, leading to several injured. Several shops were also damaged during the clash between the two rival parties. The clash occurred during sitting MP Nisith Pramanik’s campaigning. Both parties blamed each other for inciting the violence. The Election Commission (EC) has asked for a report from the Cooch Behar district magistrate.