Heavyweights, prominent names across parties lose in Bengal

Kolkata:  Prominent political figures including a state minister, a former union minister, sitting MPs, as also stars from other fields across various parties fell by the wayside in the Lok Sabha polls, that produced a number of upsets in West Bengal.

Leading the list of heavyweight losers is Trinamool Congress veteran and state minister Subrata Mukherjee, who first became an MLA in 1971.

He lost by over 1.74 lakh votes to BJP’s Subhas Sarkar in Bankura. Trinamool had won the seat by nearly one lakh votes in 2014.

Down south in Barrackpore, former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi lost a see-saw battle in Barrackpore to Arjun Singh of the BJP by 14,857 votes. Singh defected from Trinamool to the BJP after the party leadership turned down his plea for being nominated as a candidate from the seat.

Former President Pranab Mukherjee’s son and Congress leader Abhijit Mukherjee, who was seeking a hat-trick of wins from Jangipur constituency, stood third with a vote share of 19.61 per cent. Trinamool’s Khalilur Rahman won the seat defeating his nearest rival BJP’s Mafuja Khatun.

BJP nominee for Ghatal constituency Bharati Ghosh, a retired cop known as an overbearing officer in her service life, lost to Trinamool’s Deepak Adhikari (Dev), who was defending the seat.

Another BJP heavyweight and party National Secretary Rahul Sinha’s bid to make it to the Lok Sabha ended in despair as he was defeated by Trinamool’s incumbent MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay in Kolkata North constituency. Sinha is also a former state President of the BJP.

Trinamool veteran and party’s Rajya Sabha MP Manas Ranjan Bhunia lost to BJP state President Dilip Ghosh in Medinipur seat while former Kolkata Mayor and lawyer-turned-politician Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya of the CPI-M finished third at Jadavpur.

CPI-M’s outgoing MP from Raiganj, Mohammad Salim forfeited his deposit managing only a 14.25 per cent vote share this time. Fighting from the same constituency, former Union Minister Deepa Dasmunshi, wife of late Congress leader Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, skidded badly with just 6.55 per cent vote share.

In a stunning upset, Maldaha North sitting MP Mausam Noor, who defected from the Congress to Trinamool ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, lost to BJP’s Khagen Murmu – a former CPI-M legislator.

In Asansol, Bengali screen legend Suchitra Sen’s daughter Moon Moon Sen went down to sitting MP Babul Supriyo in Asansol. Sen, a former Bollywood actress, had entered politics with a bang five years back by pulling off a stunning upset win over CPI-M veteran Basudeb Acharia in Bankura.

Published on: May 24, 2019 at 21:15 IST

IANS