The Bhabanipur bypoll in West Bengal is creating a lot of buzz on social media and various TV channels headquartered in Delhi/Noida. The Quint took a stroll on the streets of Bhabanipur in Kolkata, which goes to poll on Thursday, 30 September, to understand the mood of the people.
Monday, 27 September, was the last day of campaigning as the Election Commission of India (EC) increased the silence period to 72 hours owing to the prevailing COVID-19 situation. On the final day, BJP deployed 80 leaders including Union Cabinet ministers, MPs, and MLAs to campaign in 8-municipality wards that constitute the Bhabanipur Assembly constituency.
The saffron party also deployed Union Cabinet ministers like Hardeep Singh Puri, Smriti Irani to campaign in Bhabanipur. BJP has gone all out for the by-election in this particular seat as incumbent Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is contesting to re-elect herself to the Assembly. And if BJP can pull off an upset here, it will create a political tsunami in Bengal, which will even impact national politics.
But that's a mammoth task we are talking about. Bhabanipur has remained a Trinamool Congress ‘(TMC) citadel for some time now. In the recently concluded Assembly election, TMC clocked around 58 percent of the votes and defeated the BJP by a margin of 28,719 votes.