In Maniktala constituency in Kolkata, TMC candidate Supti Pande won by a margin of 62,312 votes against BJP candidate Kalyan Chaubey.
In Raiganj constituency in North Dinajpur district, TMC candidate Krishna Kalyani won by a margin of 50,077 votes. While Kalyani got 86,479 votes, BJP candidate Mamas Kumar received 36,402 votes.
In Ranaghat-Dakshin constituency in Nadia district, TMC candidate Mukut Mani Adhikari won by a margin of 39,048 votes. While Adhikari bagged 1,13,533 votes, BJP candidate Manoj Kumar Biswas came second with 74,485 votes.
In Bagdah constituency in North 24 Parganas district, TMC candidate Madhuparna Thakur won by a margin of 33,455 votes. While Thakur bagged 1,07,706 votes, BJP candidate Binay Kumar Biswas got 74,251 votes.
The Trinamool Congress described the Assembly bypoll victories as the party’s massive success and said the people of Bengal have once again rejected the BJP.
“The people have rejected the BJP in the last Lok Sabha polls in Bengal and the same has been repeated in the bypolls. The allegation that bypolls were not free and fair are just excuses to hide their own failures and shortcomings. The BJP has lost the election and people’s trust. It is high time they accept the fact and move on,” said TMC leader Kunal Ghosh.
The bypoll results comes a month after the party’s performance in Lok Sabha polls when it had bagged 29 Lok Sabha seats in the state, from 22 it won in 2019.
The BJP, meanwhile, said they would introspect their performance. “We will introspect…and find out why people did not vote in our candidates’ favour. However, the TMC did not allow free and fair elections and there were reports of a lot of electoral malpractices,” BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.
About 63 per cent polling was recorded in the four Assembly constituencies that went to bypolls on Wednesday. While the TMC said the election was peaceful, the BJP alleged that the ruling party workers indulged in electoral malpractices like booth rigging and false voting to win the election.
In the 2021 state Assembly elections, of the four constituencies, three seats – Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagdah and Raiganj – were bagged by the BJP and the remaining one – Maniktala in Kolkata – was won by the TMC .
The bypoll to Maniktala was necessitated after the demise of state minister and veteran TMC leader Sadhan Pande. The other three seats fell vacant after the BJP MLAs resigned to contest Lok Sabha polls on a TMC ticket.