Kolkata: Having ensured a landslide victory in the by-polls for all the four assembly constituencies in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal chief minister, Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said 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 tweeted.
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.
The bypoll results have proved that the green wave in the state is gradually getting transformed into a cyclone. Not only that Trinamool Congress bagged the four seats with landslide margins, the deposits of the BJP candidates in three out of four constituencies got forfeited.
Read: West Bengal by-polls: TMC sweeps all four assembly seats
Political observers feel that this emphatic victory will further trigger the momentum of Mamata Banerjee’s national expansion plans. After defeating the BJP in the assembly polls, Banerjee had visited Delhi and held discussions with opposition leaders with an aim to unite the anti- BJP forces and oust the Narendra Modi-led Union government in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
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.
Senior Trinamool Congress MLA and party spokesperson, Tapas Roy also clearly said that after establishing its absolute poll supremacy in West Bengal, the party’s target now will going national. “From successive election results it is clear that only Trinamool Congress has the capability to defeat BJP at the national level. Mamata Banerjee has become the natural choice of movement against BJP,” he said.
Following the declaration of results, infighting and internal mud-slinging has started within the West Bengal unit of BJP. The party veterans like Tathagata Roy and Dilip Ghosh have tweeted messages holding the party leadership’s dependence on turncoats responsible for these disastrous results.
On Tuesday, as soon as the results for the by-polls started projecting the sorry figure for BJP, party veteran with RSS roots, Tathagata Roy, re-tweeted Dilip Ghosh’s poster message which he had shared on Twitter where he said some power brokers joined BJP before the assembly polls in West Bengal. “The leadership bowed down to the power brokers to bring them in the party. Those who had been ideologically associated with the party for so many years were insulted. Some take pride in winning 18 Lok Sabha seats from this state. Now what is the point in resorting to such theatrics. The current pathetic situation is because of all these,” Roy commented.
Meanwhile, the frustration was clear from the body language of Ghosh and another party spokesperson, Shamik Bhattacharya, when they addressed the media after the results were declared. Though initially he claimed this emphatic victory of Trinamool Congress was a result of election malpractices on the polling day, Bhattacharya immediately said that he does not want to insult the people’s verdict.
