In the recently concluded parliamentary polls, Muslim voters played a crucial role in deciding the winner in the Krishnagar Lok Sabha seat while Matua community votes played a key role in sealing the fate of the ruling party’s candidate in the Ranaghat Lok Sabha seat.

With nearly 39 per cent of Krishnanagar’s population Muslim, the minority community enabled the Trinamool Congress candidate Mahua Moitra to win the seat with margin of 63,218 votes, defeating the BJP candidate Kalyan Chaubey.

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For Ranaghat parliamentary constituency where 40 per cent of the total population is made up of the Matua community, the BJP candidate Jagannath Sarkar won the seat with a whooping margin of 2,33,428 votes, in effect securing almost the entire Matua community votes.

He defeated Rupali Biswas, widow of the slain Trinamool Congress MLA Satyajit Biswas. Krishnagar, a Left stronghold since 1957, having given the LF eight consecutive wins between 1971 and 1999, has never been a fertile ground for the lotus to bloom.

But the BJP tried hard this time to make inroads in the region by highlighting different Central issues including NRC as the constituency has been suffering from various border-related issues for decades.

A glimpse at the final poll report reveals that Mahua Moitra took Palashipara, Kaliganj, Nakashipara and Chapra Assembly constituencies while BJP’s Kalyan won Tehatta, Krishnagar Uttar and Krishnagar Dakshin Assembly constituencies.

Among the four assembly segments where she won, Chapra and Kaliganj are Muslim-dominated areas and Mahua has bagged the most votes from these two constituencies which helped her to consolidate her lead.

In Chapra, Mahua led by a margin of 49,372 votes and by 37,228 votes in Kaliganj. She also led by 36,060 votes in Palashipara and around 5500 votes in Nakashipara assembly segments.

The former India goalkeeper, Kalyan Chaubey, however, scored in Tehatta, where he led by nearly 2000 votes, Krishnagar Uttar, which gave him the vote by a margin of nearly 53,000 and Krishnagar Dakshin assembly segments, where he led by around 6000 votes.

Interestingly, the ruling party’s candidate lost by more than 27,000 votes in Krishnagar municipal area. Among the 22 wards, she only got a lead from ward no 18.

Apparently unhappy with the local Trinamool leaders in Krishnagar, Mahua said, “Those who had taken selfies have not given their votes to me in the town”.

“Mahua has performed well by her own charisma. Several leaders in her constituency has not cooperated with her during the campaign. She had hired corporate management youths from Delhi and they ran the entire campaign,” a party insider said, adding, “Mahua had consolidated the Muslim votes by visiting the minority dominated areas regularly. She had even gone in the late night in the Muslim-dominated areas in Chapra where she motivated the minority leaders”.

On the other hand, a section of BJP leaders and workers played a role in sabotaging the prospects of the BJP candidate at Kaliganj, Nakashipara and Dhubulia areas, said a party insider.

“The BJP’s North district president Mahadeb Sarkar, himself, played a suspicious role because of which expected results did not happen at several places where the party had obtained fair results in the panchayat polls,” a BJP insider said.

On the other hand, the move to nominate Rupali Biswas, wife of the slain party MLA Satyajit Biswas was considered as a masterstroke by Mamata Banerjee to retain the Ranaghat Lok Sabha seat, but it did not click.

The growing support base of the BJP in the area as well as the disintegrated Matua votebank, which was once a big strength for the ruling party, have become a serious concern to the ruling party leaders.

“The party’s prospects in Ranaghat had been crushed due to internal bickering as well as division in the Matua vote bank which accounts above 40 per cent of the total voters”, said a Trinamool Congress leader.

After winning the polls, Jagannath Sarkar said, “Sympathy cannot help to win polls. People have sympathy for Rupali but they cannot at the same time forget and forgive the Trinamul for its oppression and torture. Our fight was to save democracy in Bengal. It was quite unfortunate that the Trinamool leadership decided to use Rupali for its political benefit, sacrificing a sitting MP. In fact by nominating Rupali, the Trinamool had made our task easier.”

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