Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Face off | Saugata Roy vs Sujan Chakraborty

Roy, who once taught physics at Asutosh College in Kolkata, had a stint in the Lok Sabha from 1977 to 1980 as a Congress MP in the Lok Sabha while Chakraborty was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2004 from Jadavpur but lost to the Trinamool Congress candidates in the same constituency in 2009 and 2014.

Saugata Roy, Trinamool Congress

 “SougataDa never misses an invitation – be it for a wedding, or a threading ceremony, a ‘pujo’ or any other event,” Mamata Banerjee quips, as she campaigns for Saugata Ray, who is seeking his fourth consecutive term as the representative of the Dum Dum constituency in the Lok Sabha. The audience bursts into laughter and the 77-year-old Trinamool Congress veteran smiles standing by the party supremo, who adds: “He is very active. He is one of our MPs whom the BJP could never shout down in the Lok Sabha”. Roy, who once taught physics at Asutosh College in Kolkata, had a stint in the Lok Sabha from 1977 to 1980 as a Congress MP in the Lok Sabha.

He had three terms as an MLA in the past. He also had two stints as a union minister of state – from 1979 to 1980 and from 2009 to 2012. “This is the last time I am contesting an election. Won’t you vote for me?” Ray, who likes to swim during breaks from campaigning in scorching summer, pleads with the voters.

Sujan Chakraborty, CPI(M)

 “We are of the same age, but you are so young,” a woman greets Sujan Chakraborty as the CPI(M)’s candidate for Dum Dum Lok Sabha constituency leads a ‘padayatra’ through a residential locality. The 65-year-old grey-haired communist stalwart in a white shirt and dark trousers smiles as he seeks votes for clean roads, safe drinking water, better government education facilities, expansion of metro rail connectivity, and end of power outages and waterlogging. Chakraborty was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2004 from Jadavpur but lost to the Trinamool Congress candidates in the same constituency in 2009 and 2014.

He was however elected to the state assembly from Jadavpur in 2016 and was the leader of the Left Front in the House till 2021. The CPI (M) fielded the alumnus of the Jadavpur University to take on the TMC veteran Saugata Roy in Dum Dum. He launched his campaign with a survey, “Ki Chaichhe Dum Dum? (What does Dum Dum want?)” and designed his electioneering accordingly. Chakraborty did not lose his cool even after Roy recently ridiculed his grey hairs. “I don’t want to respond to his words. Unfortunately, he did not maintain the decency that was expected from a senior politician like him.”

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