Explained: Asansol Lok Sabha seat, from where Shatrughan Sinha is TMC candidate

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The CPM has fielded its local leader Partha Mukherjee, while the Congress, after days of deliberation, has decided to enter the fight with its candidate Prasenjit Puitandy. The contest, however, is mainly between the TMC and BJP.

The Asansol seat fell vacant in October last year after former Union Minister and BJP MP Babul Supriyo resigned. Supriyo had won the seat in 2014 and 2019, but had contested the West Bengal Assembly election of March-April 2021 as the BJP candidate for the Tollygunge seat in Kolkata. He lost the Assembly election, and in September 2021 joined the TMC.

Supriyo is now the TMC candidate from the Ballygunge Assembly constituency in Kolkata. The seat fell vacant after the demise of former state minister and veteran TMC leader Subrata Mukherjee in November last year.

Besides the Asansol Lok Sabha seat and Ballygunge Assembly seat, byelections will be held on April 12 for three other Assembly constituencies — Kolhapur North in Maharashtra, Khairagarh in Chhattisgarh, and Bochaha in Bihar.

Asansol parliamentary constituency

The city of Asansol, which is part of the Asansol Lok Sabha constituency, is a tier-II city and important railway junction close to West Bengal’s border with Jharkhand. It is the second largest and second most populated city in West Bengal after Kolkata. As per the 2011 Census, over 12 lakh people reside in the city.

The Asansol Lok Sabha constituency consists of seven Assembly segments, and has about 15 lakh eligible voters. The electorate is a mix of coal mine workers, factory workers, scrap dealers, and minorities. About 50 per cent of the electorate are Hindi-speaking, tracing their roots to neighbouring Jharkhand and Bihar.

Due to its demography, and the presence of a large number of factory workers, the constituency has always been a stronghold of the Left. The CPM won the seat in 1971 and 1977, and then eight times in a row from 1989 to 2014.

Stakes for the BJP in the election

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Asansol was one of the two seats that the BJP won in West Bengal — the other being Darjeeling, a seat that the party had won in 2009 as well. In 2014, the BJP candidate in Darjeeling, S S Ahluwalia, received support from the party’s then alliance partner Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM); the victory in Asansol was, however, largely on the BJP’s own strength.

In 2019, the BJP turned in a spectacular performance in West Bengal, winning 18 seats, including Asansol. The party failed to unseat Mamata Banerjee in the 2021 Assembly election, but won two of the seven Assembly segments in Asansol.

With Supriyo having walked out on the BJP, Asansol is a prestige battle for the saffron camp. The BJP haemorrhaged MLAs to the TMC after the Assembly elections, and winning back Asansol will be a shot in the arm for the party. It will also boost the morale of party cadres and supporters, who have suffered repeated setbacks since the Assembly election defeat.

Stakes for the Trinamool Congress

The Asansol byelection is a prestige battle for the TMC as well. The party hopes Shatrughan’s star power and his appeal among Hindi speakers of the constituency will help it snatch the seat from the BJP. The party has been winning every election since the Assembly polls — bypolls, civic polls, and the elections to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation — and would like to continue its victory march.

For Mamata Banerjee’s national ambitions, it is important to reduce the BJP’s footprint in the state. A victory in Asansol will be important for the TMC as it seeks to mount a challenge to the BJP.

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