Chunav Flashback: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, made inroads in West Bengal during the Communist Party of India (Marxist) era and won its first Lok Sabha seat in 1998 general elections for the 12th Lok Sabha.
In 1998, the saffron party fielded Tapan Sikdar from Dum Dum Lok Sabha seat who defeated CPI(M) candidate Nirmal Kanti Chatterjee, by a margin of 1,37,405 votes.
Tapan Sikdar grabbed a total vote share of 50.70 per cent while Nirmal Kanti Chatterjee received 39.70 per cent votes.
The interesting part of this election was that the BJP contested the 12th Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal in alliance with Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC).
It was TMC's first Lok Sabha election too after Mamata Banerjee founded the party as a breakaway faction of the Indian National Congress (INC) on January 1, 1998.
The BJP won the Dum Dum seat in 1998 and also in 1999 Lok Sabha elections as well. However, after 1999, the saffron camp has failed to claim the seat again.
After the BJP formed the government at the Centre under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Tapan Sikdar served as a member of various committees including on External Affairs and its Sub-Committee-III, finance and as a member of Consultative Committee in Ministry of Water Resources in 1998-99.
When he was re-elected in 1999 from Dum Dum, Tapan was given charge as Minister of State (MoS) for Communications. Between January-June 2022, Tapan was Union Minister of State for Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
In July 2002 after a Cabinet reshuffle, Tapan Sikdar was made Union Minister of State in Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, till 2004.
In 2004, Tapan Sikdar lost the seat to CPI(M) Amitava Nandy by a margin of 98,252 votes. In 2019, Amitava Nandy lost the seat to TMC's Sougata Roy by a margin of 20,478 votes.
And since 2009, Dum Dum has remained a stronghold of Mamata's party after Sougata Roy retained this seat in the next two Lok Sabha polls including 2014 and 2019.
Dum Dum Lok Sabha Election 2024
In 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the key contest in Dum Dum seat is set to take place between Trinamool Congress' Sougata Roy, BJP's Shibhadra Datta and CPI(M) Sujan Chakraborty.
Polling in Dum Dum seat is scheduled in the seventh and last phase on June 1.
