Bhabanipur Opinion Poll 2021: Who will win Bhabanipur by-election 2021?

Kolkata, Sep 28: All eyes would be on the crucial Bhabanipur Assembly constituency, which has turned out to be the hot seat of West Bengal politics after the Bharatiya Janata Party named Priyanka Tibrewal to defeat Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee.

At the outset, the Bhabanipur looks one-sided as Mamata Banerjee squares off with "lightweight" rivals in her bastion.

Tibrewal, whom the BJP has projected as a "fearless soul", is a lawyer and a vocal critique of Mmata Banerjee but has nothing to show by way of political accomplishments.

She even filed a PIL against the TMC government over incidents of violence that rocked West Bengal after the assembly elections in March-April this year.

Tibrewal had contested the assembly election from Entally and lost.

Political observers say that the battle for Bhabanipur is more about retaining its 35 per cent vote share than winning the seat.

For Mamata, it looks like a cake walk. Banerjee had won the seat twice in 2011 and 2016.

Bhabanipur bypoll crucial for CM Mamata Banerjee

Though, TMC registered a landslide victory in polls winning 213 seats in the 294-member West Bengal assembly, Mamata lost to former colleague and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari.

West Bengal Agriculture Minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay moved out of the seat to make way for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to contest from the seat.

She now must win Bhabanipur to ensure an unbroken stint as the chief minister. Banerjee is required to win a seat in the state assembly by November 5 in conformity with the constitutional provisions to continue as chief minister.

The Constitution allows a non-member of a state legislature or Parliament to continue in a ministerial position without getting elected only for six months.

The counting of votes will be taken up on October 3. It would be interesting to see how Bhabanipur, facilitates Mamata's return to the assembly from there.

Bhabanipur seat

Bhabanipur seat has always been a TMC bastion. Around 40 per cent of non-Bengali population, comprising Sikhs, Gujaratis, Marwaris, and Biharis. It has a Muslim population of about 20 per cent and the remaining 40 per cent are Bengalis.

In contrast to the popular perception that that non-Bengali voters usually favour the BJP, TMC has been winning convincingly in Bhabanipur.