The sitting MP of Hooghly, Dr Ratna De Nag, is confident of her victory in the Lok Sabha elections. She is of the opinion that the return of agricultural Singur land taken over for the Tata Nano project to the rightful owners is a historic event and hence Singur will give her the maximum lead in votes.

Dr Nag also says she is unperturbed about the Opposition party leaders “distorting facts” about Singur in their election campaign.

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The Hooghly Lok Sabha constituency consists of Singur (188 ), Chandannagar (189), Chinsurah (190), Balagarh (191), Pandua (192), Saptagram (193), and Dhanekhali (197) Assembly segments. In Hooghly, the total number of voters is 1,76,46291, of which 8,90,044 are males and 8,74,549 are females, besides 36 third gender voters.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Trinamool Congress candidate Dr Ratna De Nag had secured 6,14,312 (45.56%) of the total votes in her favour, CPI-M was in the second position with 4,25,228 (31.52%) in favour and BJP finished third with 2,21,271 votes. However, within a gap of five years, the BJP has gained political ground in Hooghly Lok Sabha constituency.

Influx of CPI-M and Congress members, coupled with discontentment from local leaders and workers of the ruling party have increased the numbers for the BJP in Hooghly, and the saffron party may put up a good contest against the sitting MP.

The BJP, the CPI-M and the Congress are of the opinion that the farmers and people of Singur are highly discontent, since even though the
agricultural lands were returned to their legal owners abiding by the Supreme Court verdict, the barren land covered with broken pieces of concrete were not reclaimed to make them favourable for agricultural purposes.

“Till date, 80 per cent of the land remains unsuitable to carry on agriculture,” claims the leader of an opposition party. “Neither agricultural development nor industrial development have taken place in Singur.”

Opposition parties feel the people of Singur have been deprived and cheated, and hence this widespread discontent will ruin the prospect of victory of the TMC candidate.

The BJP, meanwhile, feels a large section of voters who once voted in favour of the Trinamool will vote for it.

Dr Nag, however, said: “The fast progress and development work initiated by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee have benefited every household of Bengal. The common people are wholeheartedly with the chief minister and her development work. The trend of the previous Lok Sabha election indicated increase in the margin of votes. I am confident that in this Lok Sabha election, my victory margin of votes will cross 2 lakh.”

Dr Ratna De Nag added that people were against the rising communal forces in the state and organisations propogating “distorted religious ideology”, trying to create rift among the peace loving people over religious sentiments would not get a single vote.

The MP also said Opposition parties were playing up “distorted facts” on Singur agricultural development, and would eventually see that the people were still were still with the TMC.

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