As West Bengal Goes to Polls in Last Phase, All Eyes On Birbhum and This TMC Strongman
A total of 35 seats go to polls in the last phase of West Bengal Assembly elections on Thursday but the focus largely is on the 11 seats in the Birbhum district, arguably the most violence-prone district in the state, and all eyes are on the Trinamool Congress strongman Anubrata Mondal.
For the third consecutive election in the state, after 2016 and 2019, the Election Commission has been forced to put Mondal under the “strict surveillance” of the central armed police forces for a period of 62 hours during the Birbhum district polls. He still dodged the forces for three hours on Wednesday before being finally tracked down. The CBI also issued a notice for questioning him in a cattle smuggling case this week.
Mondal is the district president of the TMC in Birbhum, the party’s much feared face here, as well as, a close aide of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has not let go of him despite a series of controversies and allegations of political killings against Mondal. He has been in politics for over three decades and Banerjee has always defended him publicly. Incidentally, Mondal has never contested any election.