Bengal: Can former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi make a hat-trick from Barrackpore?

Kolkata, April 12: 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: BARRACKPORE

Date of election: May 6 (Phase 5)

The Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency is located in the North 24 Parganas district. It comprises the following segments: Amdanga, Bijpur, Naihati, Bhatpara, Jagaddal, Noapara and Barrackpur.

What happened in 2014:

Former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi of the TMC won Barrackpore, defeating CPI(M)'s Subhashini Ali by over two lakh votes (Trivedi polled 4.79 lakh votes as against Ali's 2.72 lakh). The BJP's Rumesh Kumar Handa came third with 2.3 lakh votes while the Congress's Samrat Topadar polled 30.4K votes to finish fourth.

Total electors in Barrackpore constituency in 2014 were 12.74 lakh.

Vote share:

The TMC's vote-share in 2014 was 45.56 as against the Left's 25.90. The BJP got almost 22 per cent vote share while the Congress got around three per cent.

History of Barrackpore constituency results: TMC breached in 2009 what was once a strong Left bastion

The CPI(M) had won the Barrackpore seat 10 times since the 1952 election with their strongman Tarit Baran Topdar winning it six times in a row between 1989 and 2009. He was dethroned by Trivedi who won in 2009 defeating Topdar by 56,000 votes. Trivedi retained the seat in 2014 and is contesting from the same this time as well.

Candidates contesting from Barrackpore in 2019:

• TMC: Dinesh Trivedi;
• Left: Gargi Chatterjee;
• BJP: Arjun Singh (a former TMC leader);
• Congress: Mohammad Alam