Eyeing possible municipal elections, Trinamul Congress in Murshidabad launched campaign on the eve of Mahalaya. According to TMC leaders here, the civic polls are likely to be held shortly after the Durga Puja and the district TMC workers are gearing up for the pre-poll campaigns.

Top TMC district leaders including president of district TMC, Shaoni Singha Roy held a street corner meeting at Ward No. 26 of Behrampore municipality in the evening yesterday. The TMC leaders claimed that a few hundred workers and loyalists belonging to opposition parties like the CPI-M, Congress and BJP joined the TMC during the event.

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TMC campaigners projected a young party leader, Narugopal Mukherjee as the face of municipal election for Behrampore. Mukherjee was the TMC contestant who was defeated by Subrata Moitra alias Kanchan of BJP in the Assembly polls this year.

Behrampore is the home town of Congress leader in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. During the last Lok Sabha election, Chowdhury retained the Behrampore parliamentary seat for fifth consecutive term by defeating Apurba Sarkar alias David of TMC who is currently the ruling party’s MLA from Kandi.

It was mainly the urban vote bank of Beldanga, Behrampore and Kandi towns that helped Chowdhury to scrape through while his prime opponent of TMC secured leads in rural belts comprising four Assembly segments-Barwan, Bharatpur, Nowda and Rejinagar.

Despite a landslide victory of TMC in Muslim-dominated Murshidabad district in the Assembly election this year, TMC contestants were defeated in two seats -Behrampore and Murshidabad- both having century-old municipal towns where BJP candidates secured their first-ever wins in the history of Assembly elections in Bengal.

“Keeping in mind the possible civic polls, we have jumped into campaigns in the municipal towns like Behrampore, Beldanga, Kandi etc. We are ready to repeat the Assembly election’s success of our party in the civic polls also,” said Ashok Das, a senior TMC leader in Murshidabad.

While highlighting the Mamata Banerjee government’s contribution to the development of Murshidabad district as well as Behrampore town, the district TMC chief, Shaoni Singha Roy referred to the establishment of Murshidabad University and Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital –both at Behrampore.