Kolkata, July 13: Trinamool Congress candidates have clinched victories with huge margins in all four Assembly constituencies that went for bypolls on July 10. With this, the ruling party improves its tally in the Assembly to 229 from 215 and the BJP’s numbers come down to 63 from 77.
The Congress and Left Front continue to have zero presence in the West Bengal Assembly. At Raiganj Assembly constituency in North Dinajpur District, Trinamool Congress candidate Krishna Kalyani has been declared elected by a margin of 50,007 votes, defeating the BJP candidate Manas Kumar Ghosh.
The Congress candidate Mohit Sengupta came a distant third, bagging 23,116 votes. Krishna Kalyani also got elected in 2021 from Raiganj Assembly constituency in 2021 but that time as a BJP candidate.
However, he had to resign as the legislator before the recently-concluded Lok Sabha polls as he contested as a Trinamool Congress candidate from Raiganj Lok Sabha and suffered defeat.
At Ranaghat-Dakshin Assembly constituency, the Trinamool Congress candidate Dr Mukut Mani Adhikari got elected by a margin of 39,048 votes defeating the BJP’s Manoj Kumar Biswas. The CPI(M) candidate Arindam Biswas came a distant third, bagging just 13,082 votes.
Like Kalyani, Adhikari also got elected from Ranaghat-Dakshin in 2021 but that time as a BJP candidate. However, he had to resign as legislator before the recent Lok Sabha polls as he contested as a Trinamool Congress candidate from Ranaghat Lok Sabha, where he got defeated. At Bagda Assembly in North 24 Parganas District, the Trinamool Congress’ candidate Madhuparna Thakur got elected by 33,455 votes defeating the BJP candidate Binay Kumar Biswas.
All India Forward Bloc candidate Gour Biswas came in the distant third position bagging just 8.189 votes. In the 2021 Assembly polls, the BJP candidate Biswajit Das got elected from Bagda. However, he had to resign as the legislator since he contested as a Trinamool Congress candidate from Bangaon in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, where he got defeated.
At Maniktala Assembly in Kolkata, Trinamool Congress candidate Supti Pandey got elected by a margin of over 62,000 votes defeating the BJP candidate Kalyan Chaubey. However, Pandey is yet to be officially declared as winner and the exact margin is still to be announced.
The CPI(M) candidate Rajib Majumdar came third. Maniktala bypoll was necessitated by the demise of the erstwhile Trinamool Congress legislator Sadhan Pandey. The Trinamool Congress fielded his widow Supti Pandey.
The bypoll results come as a morale booster for the Trinamool Congress and as a major setback to the BJP, considering that even in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha polls the BJP was comfortably ahead at Raiganj, Bagda and Ranaghat-Dakshin, while the ruling party was marginally ahead at Maniktala.
IANS