The Trinamool Congress on September 8 won the byelection to the Dhupguri Assembly seat in West Bengal, defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party by a margin of 4,309 votes.
Trinamool candidate Nirmal Chandra Roy, a college professor, secured 97,613 votes (46.28%), while his nearest rival Tapasi Roy of the BJP secured 93,304 votes (44.23 %). Ms. Roy is the widow of a CRPF jawan killed in Kashmir.
The byelection was necessitated by the death of BJP MLA Bishnu Pada Ray.
Terming it a “historic election”, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, “This is a big victory not just for north Bengal, but also the whole of Bengal.”
The Trinamool Congress chairperson while commenting on the overall results of the bypolls held across the country said that it was a big win for the INDIA (Indian National Developmental, Inclusive Alliance) team.
“As far as the rest of the country, in the seven byelections, the BJP has lost in four; even in a place like Uttar Pradesh. It won in Tripura, but Tripura has only two Lok Sabha seats, so there is no reason for them to celebrate. This is a big win for the INDIA team. I want people to make their decision in this manner only,” Ms. Banerjee said.
Dhupguri, a constituency in Jalpaiguri district dotted with tea gardens, is considered a stronghold of the BJP and the defeat has come as a setback for the saffron party.
However, political observers pointed out that the ruling party has always had an edge over others in bypolls in the State in the past several years, with the only exception being the Sagardighi bypolls, where the Left-supported Congress nominee defeated the Trinamool Congress candidate earlier this year.
Byrom Biswas, the Congress MLA, switched to the Trinamool Congress in less than three months after his victory.
Political observer Biswanath Chakraborty said the victory of the Trinamool Congress in the Dhupguri bypoll reinforced the success of the “patron- client” model that the Trinamool Congress leadership has developed with the electorate through several cash incentive schemes of the West Bengal government.
The announcement by Trinamool Congress general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on the eve of the polls that Dhupguri would be converted from a district block to a subdivision by the end of the year has also helped the ruling party win the bypoll. “This announcement may have caused a certain amount of confusion among the people and prompted them to vote against us,” said Mitali Roy, the former Trinamool MLA from Dhupguri.
Another crucial outcome of the election was that the Congress-supported CPI(M) candidate, Ishwar Chandra Roy, secured only 13,758 votes (6.52 %) despite both the CPI(M) and the Congress leadership in the State campaigning for him. With less than a year remaining for the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the poor performance of the Left-Congress alliance indicates that the contests in the general election may largely turn out to be bipolar rather than a three-party contest.
State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and CPI(M) State Secretary Mohammed Salim had held a joint rally in favour of the alliance candidate and targeted the Trinamool Congress on the very day the INDIA bloc held a meeting in Mumbai.
Commenting on the loss, Mr. Chowdhury spoke of organisational weakness of the parties. “ We never said that we were going to win Dhupguri, but we did not back up from putting up a fight against the BJP and the Trinamool Congress,” Mr. Choudhury said.
