After weeks of desperate campaigns the political parties are now at the last leg of the electioneering. The state will go for by-polls to four seats on June 23 next and as such the vocal campaigning comes to an end at 5 pm on Tuesday.
Since these by-polls are viewed as the prelude to the next assembly elections of 2023 during the last few days all political parties left no stone unturned to woo the voters with their unique campaign strategies , though inclement weather disrupted the high picth campaign for some days in between.
While ruling BJP relied mostly door to door campaign with senior party leaders visiting and attending some of the rallies, Trinamool Congress depended on the West Bengal leaders mostly and also some of the film stars- Shatrughan Sinha being the last in the list. Trinamool Congress also this time stressed on paper works and publishing their own ’chargesheets’ against the ruling BJP and also jacket advertisements in the, local dailies. Congress on the hand took time out for ‘agitations’ and press conference with their central in charge Ajoy Kumar in the lead. Left Front by and large maintained a low-key campaign though in one or two occasions they came out with impressive rallies.
For the BJP candidates who include Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha the party seniors like Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma, former Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath, Agriculture Minister Pranojit Singha Roy, ICA Minister Sushanta Chowdhury, Food minister Manoj Kanti Deb , et al worked day in and day out visiting the electors and requesting votes in party’s favor. Leaders like Kailash Vijayvargiya or Locket Chatterjee also joined them in some places. The BJP also released some Cover jacket advertisements for the local news papers.
TMC this time spent good money for the election campaign as they released several first Jacket Cover advertisements in almost all the important dailies even as MP Sushmita Dev camped here from the beginning. She and state BJP president Subal Bhowmik led the campaign mainly, but later were joined by party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee and Shatrughan Sinha and some other film stars. Sinha also held a press conference in the city on Tuesday appealing people to vote for the TMC. He also participated in a road show of the party in the afternoon.
Congress candidates who also held door to door campaign and some road shows, and staged some agitations, are also now hopeful of getting some sympathy vote after the attack on candidate Sudip Roy Barman. No big name came from Delhi for the candidates here. They also did not go for
Left Front campaign was largely led by former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, former minister Pabitra Kar and CPM secretary Jitendra Choudhury. Their main strategy seemed to have been activating the dormant network.
For your ready reference here is the Election results data of the 2018 assembly polls in the constituency that are going to by polls on June 23 :
6- Agartala (GEN)
Total votes: 43348
Winner: Sudip Roy Barman of BJP : 25234 votes, 56.59%
Krishna Majumder of CPI-M: 17852, 40.03%
Cong- 638, AITC- 299
8- Town Bordowali (GEN)
Total votes: 37864
Winner: Ashis Saha of BJP : 24293 votes, 61.95%
Biswanath Saha of AIFB: 13115, 33.44%
Cong: 1285, SUCI: 198
46- Surma (SC)
Toral Votes: 39509
Winner: Ashis Das of BJP : 20767 votes, 51.79%
Anjan Das of CPI-M: 18057 votes, 45.03%
Cong- 316, AITC- 299, AMB 115
57- Jubarajnagar (GEN)
Total votes: 36573
Ramendra Chandra Debnath of CPI-M : 18147 votes, 48.90%
Jadab Lal Debnath of BJP: 17498 votes, 47.15%
Cong- 686, AITC- 275, AMB- 242
