Kolkata, Oct 24 (IANS): As Madarihat Assembly constituency in Alipurduar district of West Bengal is heading to a four-cornered contest in the bypolls next month, BJP’s trump card for retaining the seat is the clean image and immense popularity of the two-time party legislator Manoj Tigga.
Tigga is currently the BJP Lok Sabha member from Alipurduar constituency.
Madarihat is going for bypolls as Tigga got elected in the Lok Sabha from Alipurduar in the 2024 Parliamentary elections. BJP’s candidate this time at Madarihat is Rahul Lohar.
Lohar's closest contestant is Trinamool Congress’ Jay Prakash Toppo, a greenhorn in electoral politics and an organisational man. Congress and Left Front, which had seat-sharing arrangements till the Parliamentary elections this year, have decided to contest separately in the bypolls for six Assembly constituencies in the state, including Madarihat.
While the Left Front has nominated the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) candidate Padam Oraon, the Congress candidate is Bikash Champramary.
Madarihat is the only Assembly constituency among the six seats where a BJP candidate got elected in the 2021 Assembly elections, while Trinamool Congress gained control over the remaining five.
Political observers feel that besides the clean image and popularity of Tigga, another comfort factor for the BJP camp is the past electoral records of Madarihat where Trinamool Congress’ performance was not at all impressive.
From 1962 till 2016, Madarihat was a strong bastion of RSP with its party candidates getting elected for 12 consecutive terms. The only exception during that period was the Assembly polls in 1967 when a Congress candidate got elected.
The political equation at Madarihat changed for the first time in 2016 but not in favour of the Trinamool Congress. Tigga for the first time got elected from Madarihat as the BJP candidate in 2016 by little over 22,000 votes.
In the 2021 Assembly polls, Tigga increased his winning margin to over 29,000 votes.
In the 2024 Parliamentary elections, Madarihat, as one of the seven Assembly constituencies under the Alipurduar Lok Sabha, gave the substantial lead to Tigga ensuring his entry into the Lok Sabha.
With little over 2,00,000 voters, Madarihat Lok Sabha is reserved for the Scheduled Tribes. The voters are mainly dependent on agriculture, tea plantations and tourism for their livelihood.