Continuing its political dominance in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress on Tuesday won all four Assembly seats that held byelections on October 30. The State’s ruling party polled close to 75% of the votes while the opposition BJP managed to secure only 14.5% votes.
Bypoll results updates | November 2, 2021
Of the four seats that went to polls, the TMC has won two of the seats that the BJP had won in May. The highest margin of victory was in the Dinhata Assembly seat, where the TMC’s Udayan Guha defeated the BJP’s Ashok Mondal by a margin of 1,64,089 votes. The BJP had won the seat in May, 2021 when Nisith Pramanik defeated Mr. Guha by a margin of only 57 votes.
At Santipur, another seat which was won by BJP in May, TMC candidate Braja Kishor Goswami won by a margin of 64,675 votes over BJP’s Niranjan Biswas.
At Gosaba, located in South 24 Parganas, the margin of victory of the TMC candidate Subrata Mondal over the BJP nominee was 1,43,051. At Kharadah in State’s North 24 Parganas district TMC candidate and Minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay won by a margin of 93,832 votes.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the results are “ a people's victory” and added that “it showed how Bengal will always choose development and unity over propaganda and hate politics. With people's blessings, we promise to continue taking Bengal to greater heights”.
TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee who had campaigned for the party candidates polls was more sarcastic in his response. “A cracker free Diwali in true sense. Wishing folks at @BJP4India a very Happy Diwali,” Mr. Banerjee tweeted.
The results of the by polls makes it clear that Trinamool Congress has strengthened its political presence after the Assembly polls whereas BJP is failing to put up any resistance to the State’s ruling party. BJP’s campaign of raking up communal violence in Bangladesh among other issues did not strike a chord with the electorate whereas TMC impetus on cash transfer schemes seem to add to the popularity of the party.
The TMC has won all the seven Assembly seats that went to bypolls after May 2021. Moreover, five elected MLAs of BJP have defected to the TMC in the past five months. In the 2021 West Bengal Assembly polls TMC had won 213 seats and secured about 47.9% votes while the BJP registered about 38% votes and won 77 seats.
Reflecting on the BJP’s performance in the bypolls, State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar said there is no democratic ambience in West Bengal for holding polls and the results are reflection of that. A section of BJP leaders said bypolls in the State have always gone in the favour of the party in power.
Another takeaway from the polls that the vote of the Communist party of India ( Marxist) marginally rose to 7.28% in the by polls.
