The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Saturday registered comfortable wins in byelections to the Asansol Lok Sabha and Ballygunge Assembly seats.
At Asansol, TMC’s Shatrughan Sinha defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Agnimitra Pual by a margin of over 3.03 lakh votes while at Ballygunge TMC’s Babul Supriyo trumped his nearest rival, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)‘s Saira Shah Halim by a margin of 20,228 votes, with 49.7% of the votes.
The most interesting take away from the election was that the Left Front managed to secure 30.1% of votes at Ballygunge, leaving the BJP in third position with 12.8 % votes in the South Kolkata seat.
Mr. Supriyo described the results as a “significant victory” amidst low voter turnout despite the slander campaign against him by the Opposition parties. Ballygunge has a significant minority population and a section of people had raised objections to Mr. Supriyo’s candidature because of his recent association with the BJP.
The singer-turned-politician had resigned as Asansol Lok Sabha MP and quit the BJP to join the TMC in September 2021.
Demographic dividend
The victory in Asansol is also significant for the Trinamool Congress. This is the first time since its inception in 1998 that West Bengal’s ruling party has won the Lok sabha seat located in the south-western region of the State, bordering Jharkhand.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s decision to field Bollywood actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha, has paid off as the constituency has a significant “non-Bengali” population. Mr. Sinha, also known as “Bihari Babu”, handed over a convincing victory to the TMC. The party secured 56.6% votes and the BJP secured 30.5%, the CPI (M) secured 7.8% votes and the Congress 1.30%. Elections to both seats were held on April 12.
TMC chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee described the victory “ Shubho Nababarsho (auspicious new year) gift to our Ma-Mati-Manush organisation”.
“Salute to the voters for reposing faith in us, yet again. I sincerely thank the electors of the Asansol Parliamentary Constituency and the Ballygunge Assembly Constituency for giving decisive mandate to AITC party candidates,” Ms . Banerjee said on social media.
State BJP president Sukanta Majumdar while explaining party’s poor performance at Ballygunge said “minority voters were deserting the Trinamool Congress and supporting the CPI(M)”. The BJP leadership including Asansol’s candidate Agnimitra Paul alleged threats and violence and said that even on Saturday Ms. Paul’s vehicle was attacked at a counting centre.
CPI(M) State Secretary Mohammed Salim said that while two TMC candidates have won in by-polls today, both are “former BJP” members.
“The people of Ballygunge have understood that BJP was a fake Opposition,” Mr. Salim said commenting on his party’s performance at Ballygunge.
