West Bengal Assembly Bypoll: Did BJP Deny Ticket to Matua Minister’s Wife Just to Evade ‘Parivarvaad’ Charge?

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday released the names of all four candidates for the West Bengal Assembly bypolls set for July 10, but the focus remained North 24 Parganas district’s Bagdah assembly segment. The reason is that the BJP CEC (Central Election Committee) took a firm stand on what it preaches to others — Parivarvaad.

The candidate list surprised many including the BJP leadership in Bengal when they found Binay Kumar Biswas has been fielded against Trinamool Congress candidate Madhuparna Thakur, daughter of TMC Rajya Sabha member Mamata Bala Thakur — the millennial of the Matua community in Bengal. Sources in the Bengal BJP have said they sent three names for Bagdah just like other seats but they were expecting the BJP CEC to give its stamp on Minister of State for Ports Santanu Thakur’s wife Soma Thakur’s name.

“It was meant to be a Matua Vs Matua fight in Bagdah. The Matua community has a sizable presence not just in Bagdah but in the entire district. On Saturday, the Bengal BJP sent three names as is the norm,” said a Bengal BJP leader on conditions of anonymity, adding he had no inkling that a Matua would not be chosen for the seat.

But BJP sources said they did not want to give an opportunity to the opposition bloc of charging it with something it charges the opposition with — parivarvaad (dynasty politics). In the recently held Lok Sabha election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it a “threat to democracy”. Earlier, he also raised the matter from the ramparts of the Red Fort. Giving a ticket to Soma Thakur would take away BJP’s key point of attack, a BJP leader in Delhi leader argued.

“But this puts enough stress on the state unit. A Matua vs Matua would be a battle of the equal in a Matua-dominated seat. BJP fielding a regular candidate against a Matua first family member is a very tough battle to begin with,” argued the BJP leader quoted earlier.

The Matuas stood strongly with the Left front but defected to the TMC after the latter appeased them with land rights. However, the BJP has bitten a large chunk of that vote with promises of full citizenship in the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

In Bagdah, the BJP MLAs, who had won the 2021 Assembly polls, had switched sides to join the ruling TMC.