Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Face off | Kalyan Banerjee vs Dipsita Dhar

Kalyan, practicing in the Calcutta High Court since 1980, remained loyal to Mamata after she quit the Congress and launched the Trinamool Congress in 1998. On the other hand, Dipsita,a PhD scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University is one of the young leaders the CPI(M) is relying on for its revival in West Bengal.

KALYAN BANERJEE, Trinamool Congress

Kalyan Banerjee was among the young advocates, who would gather at the residence of Mamata Banerjee, then a Youth Congress leader, at Kalighat in Kolkata and provide free legal services to the poor. Kalyan, practicing in the Calcutta High Court since 1980, remained loyal to Mamata after she quit the Congress and launched the Trinamool Congress in 1998. The MP from the Serampore Lok Sabha constituency since 2009 often crossed the bounds of decency while targeting his or the TMC’s political rivals. His mimicry of Vice President and Rajya Sabha chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar triggered controversy. To win for the fourth time, the 67-year-old is pinning his hopes on the TMC government’s welfare schemes and development works in Serampore. The infighting among the local TMC leaders may queer his pitch though. He was recently caught on camera asking TMC MLA and actor Kanchan Mullick, who married thrice, to stay away from his campaign, anticipating adverse reactions from rural women. Kalyan has against him CPI (M)’s Dipsita Dhar and the BJP’s Kabir Shankar Bose, who happens to be the estranged husband of his daughter. Mamata campaigned for Kalyan, but her heir apparent and the TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee avoided Serampore, despite holding rallies across the state.

DIPSITA DHAR, CPI (M)

A PhD scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Dipsita Dhar is one of the young leaders the CPI(M) is relying on for its revival in West Bengal. Born into a family of leftists, Dipsita, now 31, joined the CPI(M)’s Student Federation of India while studying at Ashutosh College in Kolkata. From demanding justice for Rohith Vemula in Delhi in 2017 to protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and organising events in and around Kolkata in support of the protesters at Shaheen Bagh in the national capital, she is known among the leftists as a firebrand activist. She contested the 2021 assembly elections but lost. As the CPI(M)’s candidate in the Serampore Lok Sabha constituency, she is highlighting the lack of employment opportunities, the ‘communal politics’ of the BJP, and alleged corruption by the TMC leaders. The SFI joint secretary alleged that her rival, Kalyan Banerjee of the TMC, had not done anything for Serampore, despite being elected from the constituency thrice. Dipsita and Kalyan had several wars of words during campaigning. Kalyan ridiculed Dipsita by calling her ‘Ms Universe’ while she countered it by referring to him as ‘Mr India’.