Swapan Majumder on the campaign trail.
Bongaon South is one of 68 assembly constituencies in Bengal that are reserved for the Scheduled Castes. The majority of the voters are Matua Namasudra Dalits who trace their ancestry to what was once East Bengal. Most came over during Partition and after the formation of Bangladesh, fleeing religious persecution. There is no official data, but they are estimated to number nearly one crore across the state. Many arenât citizens yet, so the BJP is doling out the promise of citizenship to win them over.
The Hindutva party has fielded Swapan Majumder, an associate of BJP MP and All India Matua Mahasangha president Shantanu Thakur, to take on Alo Rani Sarkar of the Trinamool Congress. Sarkar is a BJP turncoat.
Obaidur Masum, Senior Correspondent,
bdnews24.com
Published: 19 Dec 2020 02:30 AM BdST
Updated: 19 Dec 2020 02:46 AM BdST
Experts have been saying for months that the healthcare system may get overburdened in winter and they are now being vindicated by the rising number of coronavirus tests and infections, which offer a glimpse of how complicated the situation is becoming. );
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The laboratories conducted 19,054 tests on Dec 15, the highest since the first cases were detected in March, as crowds seeking COVID-19 tests at hospitals and other healthcare facilities are getting bigger by the day.
The number of samples collected on that day, which was 19,032, is also the highest, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.