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Trinamool wins Nandigram seat

Special Correspondent

— Photo: PTI

Trinamool candidate Feroza Bibi.

KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress has bagged the Nandigram Assembly seat, the by-election for which was held on January 5. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) retained the Para Assembly seat in Purulia district and the Congress retained the Sujapur seat in Malda district.

The election results were announced on Friday. Of particular significance is the outcome in Nandigram considering that the polls there were held against the backdrop of its troubled past.

Ever since violence broke out there in January 2007 in the wake of rumours that farmland is being acquired by the authorities for the setting up of a chemical hub, Nandigram has been in the news.

The movement of the Trinamool-led Bhoomi Ucched Pratirodh (Resistance against Eviction from Land) Committee against acquisition of farmland morphed into a turf war between the Trinamool and the Left parties that continued for much of the year, well after the State government announced its decision to call off the industrial project.

Coming less than eight months after the party came up trumps in the rural polls in Nandigram in May last, the Trinamool’s victory, wresting the seat from the Communist Party of India, has been more impressive than its earlier electoral success.

Its candidate, Feroza Bibi, whose son was a victim of the violence in Nandigram the previous year, defeated her closest rival, Paramananda Bharati of the CPI by more than 39,000 votes. Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee described it as a “sign of change and of things to come.”

Will do a review: Bose

Thiruvananthapuram Special Correspondent reports:

Mr. Bose said the party would seriously review the Nandigram poll outcome. Mr. Bose, who is also a member of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau, said the party would go deep into the results to see whether there were any organisational lapses or whether the Left Front failed to counter the electoral tactics of its rivals.

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