Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], April 20 (ANI): The Rashbehari constituency in Kolkata is geared up for an intense contest between sitting Trinamool Congress MLA Debasish Kumar and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s journalist-turned-politician Swapan Dasgupta.

The Rashbehari seat has been a TMC bastion since its formation in 2011. Even before the 2011 delimitation, the TMC had control over the Rashbehari Avenue seat with four-time MLA Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay.

Chattopadhyay had ended a two-decade-long Congress and Hoimi Basu's rule in the constituency in 2001. He held the seat till 2016 before contesting and winning from Bhabanipur, only to pave the way for Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee in the bye-elections. He is now on to contest the 2026 polls from the Ballygunge seat.

In the 2021 elections, Debasish Kumar won the seat by a margin of 21,414 (17.4 per cent) votes against the BJP leader Lt. Gen. Subrata Saha.

Kumar is up against self-proclaimed conservative and right-wing intellectual and former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta. He contested the last elections from Tarakeswar, where he faced defeat against TMC's Ramendu Sinharay by a margin of 7,484 votes.

However, this time the BJP is backing Dasgupta to add to its seat tally. Union Minister Amit Shah and Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, held a road show to appeal for votes in Rashbehari as Swapan Dasgupta filed his nomination.

One of the 51 Shakti Peethas, the Kalighat Temple near Rashbehari, is in the centre of the high-voltage political contest. While Swapan Dasgupta visited the temple on April 7 to counter the BJP's Hindutva plank, the TMC is banking on the construction of the iconic Kalighat Skywalk.

CM Mamata Banerjee had inaugurated the Kalighat Skywalk in April 2025, paving the way to the temple.

Women make up a large number of voters in the constituency. Apart from the infrastructure development, the TMC is pushing its Lakshmi Bhandar scheme to woo women electors. Under the Lakshmi Bhandar scheme, women in the general category will receive Rs 1,500 per month, SC/ST women Rs 1,700, and unemployed youth will get Rs 1,500 as pocket money.

Even after that, the electoral road is not easy for Debasish Kumar, who has faced an Enforcement Directorate (ED) summon in connection with a land-grabbing case. This month, the Income Tax department also conducted a search in locations linked to him.

For Congress, Ashutosh Chatterjee is giving a re-attempt to the contest in Rashbehari after he could muster only 8.4 per cent of the total votes in the last elections. Congress could not win a single seat in the last elections, and Ashutosh Chatterjee would aim to change it this time around.

The Rashbehari constituency will hold polling in the second phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections on April 29. The first phase of polling will take place on April 23, with counting of votes on May 4. (ANI)