Today in Politics: Modi, Mamata face-off in key North Bengal belt; PM to kickstart Bihar push

West Bengal’s Cooch Behar is going to witness a fiery campaign for the Lok Sabha polls Thursday, with both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee set to hold their rallies in the crucial constituency.

While TMC supremo Mamata is scheduled to hold a rally at Cooch Behar at around noon, the PM will address a rally in the constituency’s Rasleela ground at around 3 pm, the venues being 30 km apart.

Cooch Behar is among the state’s three seats going to the polls in the first phase on April 19.

In context: The constituency in North Bengal has witnessed clashes between supporters of sitting BJP MP and Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nisith Pramanik, who has been renominated by the BJP, and TMC leader and Bengal minister Udayan Guha.

Pramanik faces Jagadish Barma Basunia, the TMC’s candidate representing the Rajbanshi community and the sitting MLA of Sitai, as his principal rival this time.

Once a stronghold of the Left Front constituent All India Forward Bloc (AIFB), which held the seat for an uninterrupted 32 years from 1977 to 2009, the Cooch Behar seat is now seen as a BJP bastion, with the party securing five of the seven Assembly segments in the 2021 state polls.

Modi’s rally will be his first in the state since the announcement of the poll schedule by the Election Commission (EC) on March 16.

Recommended reading: Bengal Minister Udayan Guha’s car attacked in Cooch Behar

PM Modi will kickstart the NDA’s poll campaign in Bihar Thursday with a rally, his first in the state, at Jamui. The Jamui Lok Sabha seat fell in the kitty of the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), headed by Chirag Paswan, who is the sitting MP from the seat. The party this time has fielded his brother-in-law Arun Bharti from Jamui