It is a fight between a sitting MLA and an incumbent MP trying his luck for the second term in the Bankura constituency with 17.82 lakh voters.

While MLA Arup Chakraborty is a lawyer by profession and MP Subhas Sarkar is a physician. Mr Chakraborty owns personal savings, cash, jewelries in their wealth accounts worth Rs 4.93cr while Mr Sarkar has Rs 1.36cr as wealth. The figures are a mismatch in a district where the average per capita income is Rs 57,879 (2021 report) and 41.8 per cent still struggle to overcome poverty.

The district has an average literacy of 70.26 per cent and according to Centre’s 2022-23 report the district recorded 51.21 per cent labour force participation in different government schemes. Mr Chakraborty is the Trinamul Congress candidate against BJP’ Mr Sarkar.

More interestingly, the family wealth of Neelanjan Dasgupta, the CPM candidate, the party that is known to speak for the have-nots, has crossed 67.75 lakh. He’s a lawyer by profession, too.

“More interestingly, the parties at loggerheads with each other speak much less about the poorer have-nots but pitch stronger about religion. There lies the fallacy of democracy,” said Songiri Hembram, a retired health worker and a veteran leader of the Bharat Jakat Majhi Parghana Mahal – a tribal outfit operating across the district. He added, “I’ve stepped down from my post due to my age, but over the period that I’ve gathered, such a rich segment never bothers for the welfare of the marginal class. They rather exploit the poor for their political gains.”

Professor Arabinda Chatterjee of Bankura University said, “It’s most unlikely that the parties talk about job creation, bread and utilization of resources.”

Subhas Sarkar has been nominated by the BJP for the third consecutive time for the seat. In 2014, when veteran CPM leader and eight-time parliamentarian Basudev Acharya suffered a colossal defeat against screen personality Moon Moon Sen by losing 16.61 per cent vote base, where Sarkar ranked 3rd, had managed to secure a 15.98 per cent positive swing in BJP’s favour. In 2019, Sarkar had a further 28.92 per cent positive swing in his account defeating TMC heavyweight Subrata Mukherjee. The TMC had a marginal loss of 2.60 per cent votes, the CPM was washed away losing 24.02 per cent.

The CPM candidate, Mr Dasgupta, however claimed: “Left voters, who migrated to BJP and TMC will return significantly this time as we are the only party talking about job loss, corruption and anarchy.”

Chakraborty, Sen’s election agent in 2014, is now the TMC candidate. He’s the sitting MLA from Taldangra. Chakraborty said, “Forget about 2019, TMC has secured a turnaround in a bunch of Assembly segments like Ranibandh, Raipur, Taldangra and Khatra since the last panchayat election.” He added: “We’d a trail of 2 lakh votes in 2019, but we are 2-lakh ahead of BJP now. People don’t trust Sarkar as he’s busy doing welfare for his family and friends, but I’m here to serve 24X7 for them.”

Sarkar said, “I’ve worked hard, exhausted my MPLAD allotment for Bankura. So many works, meant for the mass, were disbursed, which helped true welfare for the people.” He claimed: “I’ve extended Rs 150cr support for the Bankura Sammilani Medical College & Hospital for infrastructure development, but the state has failed to kick off services for want of doctors as yet.”