Will RG Kar tragedy impact Bengal bypoll results?

Kolkata (The Uttam Hindu): As the results of the bypolls for six Assembly constituencies in West Bengal will be announced on Saturday, the question floating around is whether the rape and murder of a junior doctor of RG Kar Medical College impact the results. The six Assembly constituencies are Sitai in Cooch Behar District, Madarihat in Alipurduar, Taldangra in Bankura, Medinipur in West Midnapore district and Haroa and Naihati in North 24 Parganas. The polling was done on November 13 and one person died in clashes on the polling day. Bypolls were conducted at these six Assembly constituencies as the legislators from here got elected as Lok Sabha members in the general elections this year.

In the 2021 West Bengal elections, barring Madarihat, where the BJP candidate got elected; Trinamool Congress candidates emerged victorious in the remaining five constituencies. Trinamool Congress leadership is confident of bagging victory from all the six Assembly constituencies in the polls and they have claimed that the RG Kar tragedy will not have any impact on the results. One of the reasons behind their confidence is that in the bypolls there had been four-cornered contests involving Trinamool Congress, BJP, CPI(M)-led Left Front and Congress, which ensured a three-way division in the Opposition votes thus benefiting the ruling party.

The Left Front and Congress have not carried forward their seat-sharing arrangements in the bypolls which started since the 2016 West Bengal Assembly elections and continued till the general elections this year. Rather a new political equation in the state’s Left politics has evolved in the bypolls where the Left Front sacrificed the Naihati seat for the CPI(M-L) candidate. Political observers feel that the bypoll results are extremely crucial in the sense that they would to a great extent decide the strategies for both the ruling and Opposition parties for the crucial West Bengal Assembly elections scheduled in 2026.