Jangipur Lok Sabha constituency in Murshidabad district of the state is witnessing a four-cornered race. It is a seat where former President and ex-MP Pranab Mukherjee's legacy looms large over his son Congress candidate Abhijit Mukherjee's campaign. Abhijit is hoping for a hattrick after two narow victories in 2012 bypoll and 2014 Lok Sabha election, where he scraped by around 8,000 votes.
The interesting bit is Jangipur's population is around 70% Muslims and except sitting MP Abhijit, all other major candidates including that of BJP are from the minority community. BJP fielding Mafuja Khatun has surprised her party members and other parties too. She is a former Left MLA who joined BJP over the triple talaq issue couple of years back.Mafuja who is not from Murshidabad has been roped in and many BJP workers are apprehensive if their core vote bank will vote for her or not. TMC is fearing that Mafuja's presence in the field may further divide the Muslim votes and also drive the Hindu voters towards Abhijit Mukherjee.
In rallies after rallies, Mamata is accusing BJP-RSS of helping Congress, with an oblique reference to Pranab Mukherjee' visit to RSS headquarters. Abhijit and Mafuja have firmly denied any such tie-up. TMC on its part riddled with internal squabble have given ticket to political greenhorn Khalilur Rahaman, who is a bidi businessman by profession. CPI(M) has nominated Zulfikar Ali. Looking at the past trends, it is clear that an alliance between CPM and Congress would have virtually sealed the deal for Abhijit Mukherjee. In 2016, Left and Congress combined vote was nearly 2 lakh votes ahead of TMC. Now, with four-cornered race all bets are off.
TMC has managed to dominate in the panchayat election after couple of Congress MLAs crossed over to didi's outfit. Yet, Jangipur is one of the constituencies TMC is hoping to scrape through. Subhendu Adhikari, party observer for Murshidabad has handpicked the candidate and Mamata is pushing hard to win in a seat which never has been TMC's happy hunting ground. Historically, CPM has won from 1977 to 1999, except Idris Ali of Congress winning in 1996.
In 2004, Pranab Mukherjee tested his first electoral success from Jangipur when the constituency suddenly got featured in the national map owing to its celebrity candidate. It will be intriguing to see how Jangipur votes on April 23. The assembly segments under Jangipur are Suti, Raghunathganj, Sagardighi, Lalgola, Nabagram, Khargram and Jangipur.
