The Trinamool Congress’s victory in the Dhupguri bye-election has not only given it an advantage over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, but has also given it an upper hand as far as the Opposition INDIA bloc in the State is concerned.
The Trinamool wrested the Dhupguri seat from the BJP by a margin of 4,309 votes. It won despite that fact that party chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee did not campaign.
Since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when the BJP swept the whole of north Bengal, Dhupguri, which has a significant population of Rajbangshis, has been considered a bastion of the saffron party. Rajbangshis comprise 30% of the population of the region dotted with tea gardens, and are largely included in the Schedule Castes category. They have been a crucial support block for the BJP in north Bengal.
