Abhishek ring-fences his constituency as opponents eye Diamond Harbour

Months before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, battle lines are already being drawn in Diamond Harbour constituency in West Bengal as rival parties try to queer the pitch for Abhishek Banerjee, the current two-term MP who is the Trinamool Congress' second-in-command and nephew of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

Last week, Nawshad Siddique, the sole All India Secular Front (AISF) representative in the West Bengal Assembly, said that he was willing to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Diamond Harbour. "If my party nominates me I will contest from Diamond Harbour in 2024 and in that case, I will make the sitting Lok Sabha member from there a former MP," Siddique claimed.

He added that if the ruling party's "Diamond Harbour model" of rampant poll-related violence, which was evident in the panchayat elections this year fails to work in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the results will surely be different.

AISF sources said Siddique would be contesting from Diamond Harbour definitely even if the party did not get the support from the Congress-Left Front alliance. Nawshad Siddique's claim has triggered speculation about the polarisation of Muslim votes against the ruling TMC, which Bengal has witnessed in some regions in the recent Assembly and panchayat elections.

In South 24-Parganas district of which Diamond Harbour is a part, Muslims comprised 35.57% of the population during the 2011 census and the number has increased substantially in 12 years, local politicians say. On its part, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, declared that he would engineer Abhishek Banerjee's defeat by fielding a candidate in Diamond Harbour.

"I will defeat the nephew. If required, I will make someone stand against him at Diamond Harbour," Adhikari said at a BJP event without naming Banerjee.