Ruling Trinamul Congress won bypolls for all four Assembly seats – Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagdah and Maniktala – on Saturday, making the main opposition BJP weaker again in West Bengal, hardly 38 days after the results of general election were announced on 4 June.
The ruling party of India had suffered a major setback in West Bengal bagging only 12 Lok Sabha (LS) seats while it had a phenomenal rise, winning 18 out of 42 seats in the state in 2019 parliamentary polls.
Today, bagging all four Assembly constituencies in bypolls, Trinamul Congress continued its winning streak a month after its spectacular victory in the LS polls. The party won 29 LS seats raising its tally from 22 it had bagged in 2019.
While reacting to today’s victory in all four seats the Trinamul Congress chairperson congratulated all four winning candidates of her party. “Today’s victory is the victory of the people. With this victory our responsibilities for the people went up and we will work for the people of Bengal. We will dedicate our victory, both in LS and bypolls in the four Assemblies, to the people at our Martyrs’ Day rally on 21 July,” Miss Banerjee said.
The Maniktala seat was won by the TMC in 2021 but fell vacant after former state minister Sadhan Pandey died in February 2022.
At Bagdah constituency of North 24-Parganas, Trinamul Congress candidate Madhuparna Thakur, 25 year-old youngest nominee contesting Assembly polls and daughter of Rajya Sabha MP of the party Mamata Bala Thakur, defeated BJP’s Binoy Kumar Biswas by a margin of 33,500 votes. The ruling party in the state retained the Matua community-dominated after around a decade.
Ms Thakur got 1,07,706 while Mr Biswas secured 74,251.
At Ranaghat Dakshin constituency in Nadia district, Trinamul Congress nominated Mukutmani Adhikari won against the BJP candidate Manoj Biswas by a margin of around 40,000 votes.
Mr Adhikari, a former BJP MLA of the same constituency, left the saffron camp and contested Ranaghat LS seat on a Trinamul ticket. But, was defeated by BJP sitting MP Jagannath Sarkar in the LS polls.
Trinamul Congress fielded Mr Adhikari again in the Assembly bypolls.
Trinamul Congress candidate Krishna Kalyani defeated his rival Manas Kumar Ghosh of BJP by more than 50,000 votes in Raiganj Assembly seat in North Dinajpur. Mr Kalyani got 86,479 votes while Mr Ghosh bagged 36,402.
Mr Kalyani, who was a former BJP MLA from the same seat, joined Trinamul Congress ahead of LS polls and contested against the BJP candidate Kartik Pal in Raiganj parliamentary constituency. He was defeated by BJP candidate Mr Pal in the LS election.
Trinamul Congress’s nominee Supti Pandey, wife of the former minister Sadhan Pandey, defeated her nearest rival All India Football Federation (AIFF) chief Kalyan Chaubey of the BJP by a margin of more than 60,000 votes in Maniktala in Kolkata.