Kolkata, May 06: Three heavyweights -- Kolkata Mayor and Nationalist Trinamool Congress candidate Subrata Mukherjee, Congress-backed rebel NTC leader Sudip Bandyopadhyya and CPI(M)'s Sudhanshu Sil -- are playing for high stakes at the Calcutta northwest constituency in the May 10 polls in West Bengal. For Bandyopadhyya who won the seat twice on a Trinamool ticket in 1998 and 1999 but fell apart with NTC supremo Mamata Banerjee last year and was denied ticket by the party this time, it is a do or die battle,

For the mayor, the election from the constituency involves Mamata Banerjee's personal prestige.

CPI(M), with SIL currently a party legislator, is hoping to cash in on the division in NTC ranks and eyeing the victory of the Leftists in the seat after 46 years as the Communist candidate Mohit Motra won it in 1956. Considered a 'safe seat' for NTC, the cosmopolitan Calcutta north-west constituency where the non-Bengali population is in a majority hogged the limelight after a defiant Bandyopadhyya filed his nomination as an independent against the party's official nominee.

Besides, Mukherjee, SIL and Bandyopadhyya, a BSP candidate and ten independents are also in the fray.

While the rebel Trinamool leader has been allotted the symbol of a pair of candles, another independent with the same name, Sudip Bandhopadhya is contesting with the electric pole as his symbol.

Bureau Report