Mumtaz Alam | India Tomorrow
Kolkata/New Delhi, March 28— The Jangipur Lok Sabha constituency in West Bengal is going to be one of the prime constituencies in the coming Lok Sabha elections in the state. Except Congress which holds the seat, three other leading parties, including BJP, have fielded Muslim candidates for the seat represented by former President of India Pranab Mukherjee for two terms.
Welfare Party of India, one of the smaller parties that contested the seat in 2014 also, has this time fielded its national president SQR Ilyas. Ilyas filed his nomination papers in Jangipur on Thursday.
Congress, which has been winning the seat since 2004 without any break, has fielded its sitting MP and Mukherjee’s son Abhijit Mukherjee. Former President Mukherjee had won the seat in 2004 and 2009. When he became President in 2012, Congress fielded his son Abhijit and won the seat. Abhijit won it again in 2014 but with a narrow margin of 8,000 votes.
To fight against Abhijit of Congress, CPI-M has fielded Zulfikar Ali and the ruling All India Trinamool Congress has fielded Khalilur Rehman. Interestingly, BJP has also fielded a Muslim candidate — Mahfuza Khatun. Khatun, a former CPI-M MLA, had recently joined BJP.
The polling for Jangipur seat will be held in the 3rd phase on 23rd April.
Jangipur falls in the district of Murshidabad where Muslims comprise about 67% of the population as per Census 2011.
Performance of Candidates in Jangipur in 2014 Lok Sabha Polls
Candidates
Party
Votes Polled
1
Abhijit Mukherjee
Congress
3,78,201
2
Muzaffar Hossain
CPM
3,70,040
3
Sk Nurul Islam
AITC
2,07,455
4
Samrat Ghosh
BJP
96,751
5
Md. Sahabuddin
SDPI
17,257
6
Abhijit Sarkar
Independent
10,055
7
Monirul Islam
Welfare Party of India
9,476
8
Abdus Sayeed
SUCI
7,926
9
Sanjit Singh
BSP
5,507
10
Dhananjay Banerjee
AMB
3,019
11
Md. Ginnatulla Sk
JeSM
2,318
None of the Above (NOTA)
11,079
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, CPI-M candidate was first runner-up, followed by Trinamool and BJP at No. 3 and 4 with 2,07,455 votes and 96,751 votes respectively. Welfare Party candidate had polled 9,476 votes.
