Jayanta Ghosh,Burdwan, 05 Mar. 04 :  
The election bells have rung. As usually all political party are in a same boat to nominate a muslim candidate for this seat. A common strategy of nominating Muslim candidates also infected SUCI this time.The Lok Sabha elections will be held on 10th May 2004 all over West Bengal. The ruling Left Front parties are way ahead of the others in term of selecting candidates & campaign.

All political parties have nominated their candidates keeping into mind the 25% Muslim voters in the constituency. Parties like SUCI couldn't restrain itself from nominating Md. Zakaria, one of the intellectual leader of the party. The latest trend in the area is alliance between PDS & CONG(I). This time the Cong(I) will not nominate any candidate at Katwa to support PDS President, Saifuddin Choudhury at the seat. The CPI(M) have re-nominated Mehebub Jahidi at Katwa, one of its strong-hold areas in Bengal. The party is all set to win at Katwa for the eighth time.

Although CPI(M) is confident about its winning at the Katwa seat, the party is not taking any chances & have already finished its pre-poll first steps like walling, booth-wise meeting with the party workers etc. The TMC have nominated three candidates in the 4 Lok Sabha seats in the district. Although BJP (an alliance of TMC in the state) was keen to contest from Katwa, TMC has nominated Sultan Ahmed, their first ever Muslim candidate at the Lok Sabha. Although Sultan Ahmed is from Kolkata, he has started his work in the Kalna-Katwa areas from last month keeping an eye on his candidature.

Although all the political parties have a common strategy of nominating Muslim candidates to grab a major share of the 25% Muslim votes of the area, the local people are not quiet happy with the strategy.