BJP banking on ex-IPS officer Debasish Dhar to halt TMC’s juggernaut in Bengal’s Birbhum

Suri: The BJP has sprung a surprise in West Bengal’s Birbhum constituency, pitting former IPS officer Debasish Dhar, who was suspended by the Mamata Banerjee government after the 2021 assembly elections, in a bid to halt TMC's Satabdi Roy from winning a fourth consecutive term.

The absence of TMC's former Birbhum district president Anubrata Mondal, whose strong-arm tactics and controversial comments lent both fear and colour to the political scene here, seems to have made the electoral atmosphere a little lacklustre, but the BJP is seeing a level-playing field, owing to the new scenario.

Mondal was arrested by the CBI in 2022 in a money laundering case related to cattle smuggling in West Bengal. He is at present lodged in Delhi's Tihar jail.

A political novice, Dhar has been entrusted with the onerous task of putting brakes on the actor-politician from emerging triumphant again in Birbhum in the western part of the state.

"I got the offer to join politics and contest the election from Birbhum from a very high-level functionary," he said.

Speaking to PTI, Dhar said that since the offer was from a "very high-level" functionary, whose name he did not reveal, he took the decision to accept it "within an hour".

Sounding confident of wresting the seat from the TMC, the former IPS officer said he is getting full organisational support from the saffron party workers.

Dhar was the superintendent of police of Cooch Behar during the 2021 assembly polls, when four persons died in firing by the central forces at Sitalkuchi in the district. After the Mamata Banerjee-led dispensation came to power for the third consecutive term, one of its first decisions was to suspend him. He was later put on compulsory waiting.

Dhar resigned from service in March, and was subsequently named by the BJP as its Birbhum candidate.

Sitting TMC MP Satabdi Roy asserted that she is now "more confident" of trouncing her opponents in the Lok Sabha polls.

The Trinamool Congress had fared well in Birbhum in the 2023 panchayat elections despite the absence of Mondal, she said.

"He will certainly be missed emotionally, but his absence will not affect our electoral prospects here," she told PTI.

Roy asserted that the party organisation and its core committee are there to manage the electioneering and “things are working out smoothly”.

Asked about Dhar having been pitted against her by the BJP, she said, "I have respect for the opposition candidate." Roy said she never makes personal comments against any of her opponents, preferring to stick to the political narrative.

In Birbhum, BJP's Dudh Kumar Mondal had lost to Roy in the 2019 elections by a margin of over 88,000 votes, but the saffron party significantly increased its vote share by over 20 per cent compared to the 2014 polls. The TMC got 45.13 per cent votes, while the BJP bagged 38.99 per cent votes in the 2019 polls.

The constituency is also being fought by the Congress, which had last won the seat in 1967, in alliance with the Left Front. The party has fielded Milton Rashid from Birbhum.

In the 2019 polls, Congress could garner only 5.21 per cent votes coming fourth, while the CPI(M), which had fought separately, came a distant third with a 6.68-per cent vote share.

Rashid, a lawyer and a former Congress MLA from Hansan, one of the assembly segments within the Birbhum Lok Sabha constituency, is also the party's district president.

The constituency, bordering Jharkhand on its western side, is also home to Deucha Pachami, touted to be the largest coal block in the country.

Of the seven assembly segments in Birbhum, Suri, Sainthia, Rampurhat, Hansan, Nalhati and Murarai were won by the TMC, while Dubrajpur went to the BJP in the 2021 elections.

The Muslim-majority Murarai and Nalhati assembly segments are within the Birbhum Lok Sabha constituency.

Despite the absence of Mondal, TMC’s Roy has the support of a strong organisational setup, and hopes to retain votes of the minorities, whose support the party enjoyed in previous elections since 2009.

Roy, however, had garnered less votes in the urban areas of the constituency, including Rampurhat, Suri and Sainthia.

Though the BJP announced its candidate from Birbhum on March 30, Roy was renominated by her party on March 10, giving her a head start.

Dhar, not new to the district having served here for some time as a sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) and also a deputy superintendent of police (DSP), has been crisscrossing the constituency to make up for the lost time.