“You had blessed me last time and sent me to Delhi. I have tried to develop the area and work for you. My party has chosen me to fight from this seat again and I ask for your blessings this time too. I have been part of four governments at the Centre, I have been a parliamentarian for 38 years. I am getting old. This may be my last election. I do not know whether I will be able to contest polls any more,” said Mukherjee in a public rally in Gopalnagar Dhanmath under Suti-I block in the evening.Taking a dig at the Third Front he said, “Our prime minister is Manmohan Singh. If we form the government, he will be our PM. But in the Third Front there are numerous leaders. Jayalalithaa says she will be the prime minister, Mayawati says she will be the prime minister. Why don’t they have musical chairs and all these leaders can take turns to become the PM — one in the morning, the other in the evening. Only the Congress can run a coalition government,” he said.

“We usually vote for the CPI(M), but not when Pranab babu is contesting. We wanted a provident fund office for bidi workers here and he opened one for us,” said Rubina Noor, a bidi worker from the area. According to government estimates, there are 600,000 bidi workers in Jangipur constituency.

In the last polls, Mukherjee had defeated CPI(M) candidate Abul Hasnat Khan by 37,782 votes. Nripen Chakraborty, CPI(M)’s district secretary, said, “Pranab’s political stature is enormous. We have pitted Mriganka Bhattacharya, our popular leader, against him. Even if we lose, we will put up a stiff fight.”