Kolkata: The ruling Trinamool Congress emerged victorious in the by-polls for all the four assembly constituencies in West Bengal. TMC candidates won Dinhata ( Cooch Behar district), Santipur (Nadia), Khardaha (North 24 Parganas) and Gosaba (South 24 Parganas) assembly seats where the bypolls were held on October 30.
However, what was clearly unexpected was the average voting percentage in the four assembly constituencies going in favour of the state’s ruling party. As per the latest records provided by the office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, the average voting percentage that went in favour of the Trinamool Congress in the by-polls was 77 per cent.
The most surprising result was at Dinhata, which had returned BJP's Minister of State for Home Nisith Pramanik in elections held earlier this year by a slender margin. But this time, TMC candidate Udayan Guha, who was defeated by Pramanik just six months back by a paltry margin of little over 50 votes, bagged a landslide victory by a record margin of 1,64,089 votes.
Pramanik, who in the West bengal assembly polls and became an MLA, had resigned to retain Coochbehar Lok Sabha seat.
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Equally surprising was the result of Santipur seat. Just six months back, BJP’s Jagannath Sarkar got elected from Santipur by a margin of over 23,000 votes. But Sarkar too like Pramanik resigned to retain his chair as Lok Sabha member. But this time, in the by-polls, the voters of Santipur completely changed their choice by electing Trinamool Congress’s Brojokishore Goswami by a margin of 63892 votes against BJP’s Niranjan Biswas.
Another landslide victory for Trinamool Congress came in Gosaba, where the party candidate, Subrata Mondal defeated the BJP candidate by a margin of 1, 43,051 votes. Gosaba went for by-polls following the death of its TMC MLA, Jayanta Naskar, who got elected six months back by a margin of just 23,709 votes.
In Khardaha assembly constituency, Trinamool Congress’ Sobhondeb Chattopadhya defeated BJP candidate Joy Saha by a margin of 93,832 votes. Khardaha went for by-polls following the death of its Trinamool Congress MLA, Kajal Sinha, who got elected six months back by a margin of just27,140 votes.
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Expressing immense satisfaction over the results, Mamata Banerjee said that this is the victory of development and unity over propaganda and hate politics.
“My heartiest congratulations to all the four winning candidates! This victory is people's victory, as it shows 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!” the chief minister said on Twitter.
BJP state president in West Bengal and party Lok Sabha member, Sukanta Majumdar said that the results does not reflect the true sentiments of the people but are reflections of massive electoral malpractices by the ruling party on the polling day.
Political scientist and former registrar of Calcutta University, Rajagopal Dhar Chakrabarty said that although the victory of Trinamool Congress was as expected, such huge margins was beyond imagination. All past records have been surpassed. This will surely impact future elections, especially the polls for the municipalities and municipal corporations. The results probe that BJP is yet to develop a strong base in West Bengal,” he said.
