The third phase of polling in 31 constituencies spread across three districts of South 24 Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly in south Bengal tomorrow (Tuesday, 6 April) will be crucial for both Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool.
The Indian Secular Front (ISF) floated by firebrand Islamist cleric Abbas Siddiqui, which is expecting to bag a couple of seats in this phase, is likely to dent the Trinamool’s prospects in a few constituencies.
In 2016, Trinamool won 30 of the 31 seats that are going to the polls on Tuesday. The BJP made major inroads into these Trinamool bastions in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, and is confident of wresting away many of them from the Trinamool.
The Trinamool has been trying its best to prevent a split in Muslim votes. Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee has, in all her public rallies, been desperately urging Muslims against supporting the ISF and has branded Abbas Siddiqui a ‘BJP stooge’.
A split in the Muslim vote will be calamitious for Banerjee since that will help an aggressive BJP.
But the Trinamool’s plans may come unstuck since Siddiqui is quite popular, especially among the youth of South 24 Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly.
#WestBengalElections #MamataBanerjee
Subscribe to Swarajya on YouTube.
Get a Swarajya subscription: [ Ссылка ]
Website: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
