Bengal: Can Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee retain Diamond Harbour this time?

Kolkata, April 16: 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: DIAMOND HARBOUR

Date of election: May 19 (Phase 7)

The Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency is located in the South 24 Parganas district and comprises the following segments since the 2009 delimitation: Diamond Harbour, Falta, Satgachhia, Bishnupur (SC), Maheshtala, Budge Budge and Metiabruz.

What happened in 2014:

TMC's Abhishek Banerjee, nephew of party supremo Mamata Banerjee, won this seat in 2014 and retained it for the party. Abhishek defeated CPI(M) Abdul Hasnat by over 71kvotes. The BJP's Abhijit Das finished third with just over two lakh votes and the Congress's Mohammad Qamaruzzaman Qamar ended up fourth with 63k votes.

Total electors in Diamond Harbour constituency in 2014 were 15.50 lakh.

Vote share:

The TMC's vote-share in 2014 was 40.30 while the Left got around 34.67 per cent. The BJP received almost 16 per cent vote share while the Congress got around five per cent.

History of Diamond Harbour constituency results: TMC won it in 2009 and retained five years later

The CPI(M) had kept the seat under their control between 1967 and 2009, winning for 12 consecutive terms. In 2009, Somendra Nath Mitra, the current Congress chief in Bengal, won it for the first time for the TMC. In 2014, Abhishek Banerjee was nominated from this seat after Mitra returned to the Congress.

Candidates contesting from Diamond Harbour in 2019:

• TMC: Abhishek Banerjee;
• Left: Fuad Halim;
• BJP: Nilanjan Roy;
• Congress: Soumya Aich Roy