CALCUTTA: The Trinamul Congress continued its winning streak from the recent Lok Sabha elections by sweeping the West Bengal assembly bypolls on Saturday, wresting Raiganj, Bagda, and Ranaghat Dakshin seats from the BJP and securing a record victory margin in Maniktala.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidates Krishna Kalyani, Madhuparna Thakur and Mukut Mani Adhikari won the Raiganj, Bagda, and Ranaghat Dakshin seats respectively, while Supti Pandey won in the Maniktala segment in Kolkata.
The bypolls in the four assembly seats were held on July 10.
The BJP secured the second position in all four seats, while the Left-Congress alliance was a distant third and also lost deposits in two assembly segments.
The bypolls, just a month after the Lok Sabha polls, was a litmus test for all three political outfits, with the BJP hoping to check its electoral slide and retain the three seats it had won last time, a goal which it failed to meet and the TMC aimed to continue its winning streak in the bypolls.
Since the 2021 assembly polls, the TMC has won all the by-elections, except the Sagardighi bypoll in March 2023, which the Congress had won.
West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee thanked the people for the party’s resounding victory.
“We thank the people for their faith in us. We will dedicate the by-election and the Lok Sabha poll victories to the martyrs on our July 21 Martyrs’ Day rally,” she said.
With this victory, the TMC’s tally becomes 215 in the 294-member assembly. It also enjoys the support of three BJP MLAs, who switched over to the ruling party but are yet to resign from the House.
The BJP’s official tally in the state assembly has come down to 71 from 77 it had won in 2021.
The assembly segments of Haroa and Naihati in North 24 Parganas district, Sitai in Cooch Behar, Taldangra in Bankura, Madarihat in Alipurduars, and Medinipur in Paschim Medinipur are still vacant since their respective sitting MLAs contested and won the Lok Sabha polls.
Reacting to the party’s performance in the bypolls, a state BJP leader said they would introspect.
“We will introspect the party’s performance. But the TMC did not allow free and fair elections and there were a lot of irregularities. The ruling party had unleashed a reign of terror,” BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.
The TMC was quick to counter, dubbing the allegations “baseless”.
“The people have rejected the BJP in the last Lok Sabha polls in Bengal and the same thing has happened in the bypolls. The allegation that by-polls were not free and fair are just excuses to hide their own failures,” TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said.
PTI