There is a high-voltage battle between former husband-wife, who are now political enemies in this temple town.
Soumitra Khan, the BJP candidate has been nominated by his party to take on Trinamul Congress candidate Sujata Mondal, his former wife. Sujata, in absence of Soumitra in the 2019 battlefield due to a Calcutta High Court order restraining him from the area, had spearheaded the campaign on his behalf, armed with Khan’s photograph. Khan was restrained from entering his constituency by the court. After gaining a 32.24 per cent positive swing, he’d dedicated his victory to his wife.
Now, he has the task of denying votes to Sujata, as his political opponent for the LS polls.
The couple battled in the court for a couple of years after the TMC nominated Sujata for the Arambagh Assembly seat in 2021 that finally resulted in separation in 2023.
“I’ve come here to repent for my past misdeeds of supporting Soumitra. I will set it right by unmasking a demon that’s looted Bishnupur over the years. My conscience actually has forwarded me to this war zone and the religious township I believe is also ready to confront the ‘culprit’. The crowded rallies and roadshows are an evidence of that,” said Sujata. Her party chief Mamata Banerjee twice campaigned for her in a fortnight but in neither of the venues she took Soumitra’s name. Instead Mamata said, “I wonder how Sujata married such a guy. I’ve got a stock of photographs of him that Sujata has never seen!”
She said, “Last time, it was a crusade of a woman to beg for votes for her helpless husband and this time it’s the same woman struggling to get justice from the man, who is an anarchist and bad husband.”
Soumitra Khan however reserved personal attacks against Sujata to some extent during his campaigns. He chose to attack more aggressively against Abhishek Banerjee, TMC’s national general secretary. He said: “Her tastes might have gone down miserably for political gain, but I won’t fall for the trap as once I’d loved her.” He claimed: “Sujata’s nomination already has doubled my winning margin here.” Khan entered state politics winning the Kotulpur Assembly seat as a Congress candidate in 2011. He made a switchover and got elected as an MP from the Bishnupur seat as a TMC candidate in 2014. Considering the changes of the wind flavour, he shifted to the BJP in 2019 and again won the Bishnupur Lok Sabha seat.
Bishnupur constituency accommodates 35.40 lakh voters, of which, 2.51 lakh are from 17 panchayat areas in Khandaghosh and Galsi-2 blocks of neighbouring East Burdwan district where Khan personally campaigned in 2019 but he trailed behind the TMC candidate Shyamal Santra by 31,000 votes. Khan had won the seat by 78,047 votes and the entire swing was harvested by Sujata.
The CPM votes in 2019 had a negative swing of 26.55 per cent. In this turf, the left votes continued to slide from 2009, the year when CPM’s Susmita Bauri had won the seat but had lost 12 per cent wave to Seuli Saha of TMC. The CPM has fielded Shital Koibartya here, but his feeble presence hasn’t made any difference to the voters eyeing at the two contestant flowers.
The BJP’s 2019 victory had revealed the TMC’s losing foothold in the seven Assembly segments of Bishnupur. In 2021, the TMC however defeated the BJP in Khandaghosh and Barjora segments comfortably. An ambitious Sujata said, “Soumitra has ignored the partymen, who shed blood for BJP here and many undeserving people from the CPM and other parties have intruded. So, a good number of the deprived people have set their mind to vote in my favour this time.”
Khan responded, “She’s got no idea about ground-level politics and soon she’ll realize that.”