Kolkata: Bouncing back after the Lok Sabha jitters, West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) won all three seats in the Assembly bypolls on Thursday, snatching Kaliaganj and Kharagpur from its opponents while retaining Karimpur.
It was a disappointing day for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which not only failed to open its account, but also lost in two prestigious seats — Kaliaganj and Kharagpur — where its heavyweight candidates had taken massive leads during the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year.
The newly stitched Congress-Left Front alliance also came a cropper, with its candidates forfeiting their security deposits in all the three seats that went to bypolls on November 25.
Elated over the results, Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee called it the “victory of ma, mati, manush (mother, land and people — Trinamool’s pet slogan)” and dedicated it to the masses.
Banerjee was particularly happy about Kaliaganj and Kharagpur Sadar, which the party never managed to win since its formation in 1998.
After trailing the BJP in the initial rounds of counting, the TMC bounced back in Kaliaganj, where its candidate Tapan Deb Singha emerged victorious with a 2,414-vote margin.
BJP’s Kamal Chandra Sarkar took the second position, while Left Front-backed Congress candidate Dhitasree Roy finished a distant third.
The bypoll was necessitated by the death of Roy’s father and sitting Congress legislator Pramathanath Roy. (IANS)
