CPI(M) Bengal secretary Md Salim trailing by over 1.5 lakh votes in Murshidabad

Kolkata, Jun 4 (PTI) CPI(M)'s state secretary Mohammed Salim was trailing by a huge 1.56 lakh votes to the Trinamool Congress' Abu Taher Khan in Murshidabad Lok Sabha constituency on Tuesday, the Election Commission data said.

Salim has been one of the candidates on whom the CPI(M)-led Left Front was heavily banking on to reopen its account in the Lok Sabha from West Bengal, where it could not win a single seat in the 2019 general elections.

TMC's Abu Taher Khan, however, is leading by an almost unassailable lead of 1,59,393 votes over the veteran CPI(M) leader.

Salim, a former Lok Sabha MP from the now defunct Kolkata North-East in 2004 and thereafter again from Raiganj in 2014, denied that his candidature from Murshidabad had anything to do with it being a Muslim-majority constituency.

According to the CPI(M) state secretary, the Left Front does not see religion when it selects candidates for a constituency.

According to the 2011 census, Murshidabad district has over 66 per cent Muslim population and 33 per cent Hindus.

TMC candidate Abu Taher Khan had maintained that Salim would not be much of a factor.

He was more wary of BJP's candidate Gouri Shankar Ghosh, who is the sitting BJP MLA from Murshidabad assembly segment.

The Murshidabad constituency has shifted between the Congress, which won in 2004 and 2009, the CPI(M) in 2014, and the TMC in 2019.

Since the early 2000s, it has not been a stronghold for any major political party. PTI AMR NN