Winds of change blowing in Mahua Moitra's Krishnanagar

Around 130 km from Kolkata is located the town of Krishnanagar, the headquarters of West Bengal’s Nadia district bordering Bangladesh.

- TIKAM SHARMA

The historically rich Krishnanagar, which has one of the oldest municipalities in the state—established in 1864—is named after the 18th century king, Maharaja Krishnachandra Roy (1728-1782). He belonged to the era when the Battle of Plassey (1757) in Bengal ushered in East India Company rule in India, under Robert Clive. Krishnanagar may still have its share of historically important buildings and sites, but the town is decaying. With not many signs of development anywhere, it could easily be mistaken for just another small town in the hinterlands of Bengal, but for its famous erstwhile Lok Sabha member, the outspoken Mahua Moitra of the Trinamool Congress—erstwhile because she was expelled from Parliament under serious allegations of impropriety and is currently under the scanner of investigating agencies.

However, this has not stopped West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee from fielding Mahua Moitra from Krishnanagar for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Moitra had a reasonably decent victory in the 2019 elections, winning with a margin of 63,218 votes over her BJP rival, Kalyan Chaubey. Four of the seven Assembly segments constituting the Krishnanagar Lok Sabha constituency, voted for her, while three went to the BJP. After that, in the 2021 Assembly elections, the TMC won all the seven Assembly seats. But that may not be good enough for Moitra to win back her former Lok Sabha seat in 2024. A strong wind against the TMC and Moitra is blowing in Krishnanagar and the Bharatiya Janata Party, hoping to cause an upset, has fielded Amrita Roy, the lady who would have been the queen of Krishnanagar if India still had royalty. Locally, Amrita Roy, who belongs to Krishnachandra Roy’s family, is called Rani-Ma. It seems Krishnanagar’s Rani-Ma is all set to give Moitra a run for her money.