Poll date: 12 May

Jadavpur

Key candidates: Sugata Bose, TMC I Sujan Chakraborty, CPM I Samir Aich, INC

An elderly woman in a crumpled white cotton sari stands by the roadside, clutching a bunch of flowers, as a massive All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) rally meanders down the serpentine lanes of Santoshpur in south Kolkata’s Jadavpur constituency.

She has a puzzled look when asked about the identity of the man standing on the open vehicle, garlands piled up around his neck, head bowed and hands folded in a namaste. Nudged by her companion, she says, “Sugata Bose.”

She doesn’t seem to know anything more, nor does she care. “He has been chosen by Mamatadi (Banerjee). He must be a good man,” she says triumphantly after showering the Jadavpur TMC candidate with petals.

“Netaji-er gharer chhele ke vote din, vote din! (vote for the boy who belongs to Netaji’s family)”—the sloganeers are at their loudest as they ask people to vote for nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose’s great-nephew, who has replaced sitting MP Kabir Suman as the TMC candidate.

READ MORE.