Bypolls in 3 Assembly seats crucial test for TMC, BJP ahead of 2021 Assembly election in West Bengal

New Delhi: The bypolls for three Assembly constituencies in West Bengal is scheduled to take place on Monday (November 25) and both the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) must be hoping to win all three sears.

The tussle between TMC and BJP intensified after this year’s Lok Sabha polls in which the BJP did exceedingly well to win 18 of the 42 seats. The TMC won just four more seats than the BJP.

The bypolls will be held in Kharagpur Sadar, Karimpur and Kaliagany constituencies. Kharagpur Sadar and Karimpur seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs from these seats contested and won Lok Sabha election, while bypolls to Kaliaganj constituency was necessitated after the death of Congress MLA Parmathanath Roy.

In Kaliaganj, Congress candidate Dhitashree Roy is in the fray against TMC’s Tapan Deb Sinha and BJP’s Kamal Chandra Sarkar in Kaliaganj.

For Karimpur constituency, CPI(M)-Congress candidate Gholam Rabbi is going to face a tough challenge from BJP’s Jay Prakash Majumdar and TMC’s Bimalendu Singha Roy.

In Kharagpur Sadar constituency, BJP's Prem Chandra Jha is up against Chittaranjan Mandal of the Congress-CPI(M) alliance and Pradip Sarkar of the TMC.

The results for the three bypolls will be declared on November 28.

Experts maintain that the results of bypoll will drop a major hint about the political situation in the state and it will play an important role in helping different political parties chalk out their strategies for 2021 Assembly election. It is believed that issues like National Register of Citizens and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill will have a tremendous impact on the state bypolls.