BJP’s Dilip Ghosh confident of party’s victory in West Bengal polls, says TMC ‘ensured to leave’

KHARAGPUR: BJP candidate from Kharagpur Sadar assembly constituency Dilip Ghosh Expressing confidence in the party’s victory in the West Bengal polls, the ruling party Trinamool Congress“Guaranteed Departure”. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Dilip Ghosh said, “It’s time for the TMC to leave… Now Mamata Banerjee has nothing in her hands. Their departure is a certainty”.Ghosh also said that deployment of central forces at polling stations would ensure that people exercise their right to vote without being intimidated by TMC goons. “If these polling stations were controlled by central forces, people would feel safe going to vote because the police here along with the goons are terrorizing people,” he said. Dilip Ghosh is looking to repeat his 2016 performance in the Kharagpur Sadar constituency, where he will face off against the Trinamool Congress’s Pradip Sarkar, who himself is hoping to make a comeback from his defeat in 2021.Kharagpur Sadar, with an estimated total population of 400,000 and nearly 190,000 voters, hopes to find a candidate who can help solve long-standing problems of pollution, water crisis and youth unemployment.Assembly constituency No. 224 consists of Kharagpur Railway Settlement, Kharagpur I Community Development Area and Kharagpur Municipal Corporation. There has been a desire to find a leader who would ensure development efforts in the region continue.The constituency was once a railway junction and was home to a diverse mix of people from across the country, including Telugu, Marathi and Tamil speakers who almost outnumbered the local Bengalis.Dilip Ghosh is looking to make inroads again after losing the 2024 Lok Sabha contest, hoping to repeat the performance of 2016 when he managed to break the record of seven-time elected MP Gyan Singh Sohanpal. Ghosh left the MLA seat after being elected to the Lok Sabha in 2019. After the by-elections, All India Congress (AITC) candidate Pradip Sarkar defeated Prem Chandra Jha of the Bharatiya Janata Party. However, this victory only lasted until 2021, when the BJP’s Hiramoy Chattopadhyay managed to wrest the seat from the party. Chattopadhyay is now contesting from Shyampur constituency.Congress also fielded Papiya Chakraborty.The upcoming elections come on the heels of the 2021 election in which the TMC won a landslide 213 seats. However, the BJP grew from a minor seat to 77 seats in the last cycle, setting the stage for the current high-stakes confrontation. West Bengal is scheduled to hold two-phase assembly polls on April 23 and 29, with the results to be announced on May 4.