Krishnanagar seat in Bengal: Trinamool looks to make a hat-trick but without Tapas Paul

Kolkata, April 9: The schedule for the 17th Lok Sabha election was announced by the Election Commission on Sunday, March 10. The election will be held in seven phases between April 11 and May 19 with the results to be declared on May 23. Of all the states in the country, West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh will witness elections in seven phases.

Here we take a look at all the Lok Sabha constituencies (42) of Bengal and how parties have fared there over the years.

Constituency: KRISHNANAGAR (formerly KRISHNAGAR)

Date of election: April 29 (Phase 4)

The Krishnanagar Lok Sabha constituency in Nadia district of Bengal comprises the following seven segments: Palashipara, Nakashipara, Kaliganj, Chapra, Krishnaganj, Krishnanagar East, Krishnanagar West.

What happened in 2014:

The Trinamool Congress retained the seat in 2014 as its celebrity candidate Tapas Paul won by 71,255 votes against his nearest rival, CPI(M)'s Shantanu Jha (4,38,789 votes as against 3,67,534 votes). In 2009, Paul defeated the sitting MP - Left's Jyotirmoyee Sikdar, a former athlete, by over 77k votes. Former Union minister and an MP from the seat Satyabrata Mookherjee from the BJP finished third both in 2009 and 2014 although his votes had increased to 3.29 lakh in 2014 compared to 1.75 lakh in 2009. The Congress's Ahmed Razia received 74,789 votes in 2014.

Total electors in Krishnanagar constituency in 2014 were 14,67,178.

Vote share:

The TMC's vote-share in 2014 was 35.16 per cent (it was 42.43 per cent in 2009) while the Left got 29.45 per cent (35.03 per cent in 2009). The BJP's vote-share increased to 26.39 per cent from 16.76 per cent. The Congress's vote-share in 2014 was 5.99 per cent.

History of Krishnanagar constituency results: TMC dominates now what was once the Left's bastion

The CPI(M) has won the Krishnanagar seat nine times since 1957 with eight consecutive wins between 1971 and 1999. The BJP won this seat in 1999 in what constitutes one of its rare wins in Bengal. The TMC, however, has been winning this seat since 2009 with its actor-politician Tapas Paul claiming it two consecutive terms. This time, Paul has not been given the tickets to contest from Krishnanagar this time after he landed in legal soup in relation to Rose Valley chit fund scam and sitting MLA from Karimpur, Mahua Moitra, is contesting from this seat.

Candidates contesting from Krishnanagar in 2019:

TMC: Mohua Moitra;

Left: Shantanu Jha;

BJP: Kalyan Chowbey;

Congress: Intaj Ali Shah