The ruling AIADMK won the Srirangam Assembly seat in the vacancy caused by the unseating of Jayalalithaa in a corruption case while TDP bagged the Tirupati seat in Andhra Pradesh. BJP won the Panaji seat and the Congress the Liromoba seat in Arunachal Pradesh.
However, the BJP, which has been trying to make inroads in West Bengal came second in the Assembly seat while it stood third in the Lok Sabha seat.
TMC candidate Mamatabala Thakur won the Bongaon (SC) Lok Sabha seat with a margin of 2,11,794 lakh votes, substantially higher than the 1.46 lakh votes margin it got in last year’s Lok Sabha polls. The bypoll was dubbed as a prestige fight after state minister Manjul Krishna Thakur quit the government and TMC to join BJP.
While the TMC candidate secured 5,39,990 votes, her nearest CPI(M) rival Debesh Das got 3,28,196 votes. Manjul Thakur’s son Subrata, who was BJP’s candidate, got 3,14,119 votes. Congress came fourth in the constituency.
In the Krishnaganj Assembly by-election, TMC candidate Satyajit Biswas won by a margin of 37,033 votes. He secured 95,467 votes and defeated his nearest BJP rival Manabendra Roy to secure 50,436 votes. The CPI(M) was relegated to third position with 37,620 votes in contrast to the second position it had got in the last elections.
TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee described the results as a miracle and said the party is “intact and strong”.She also said that the results were people’s “rejection of the conspiracy by Delhi and slanderous campaign of the BJP and a section of the media”.
The bypoll results also assume significance ahead of this years’s crucial elections to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and about 80 municipalities across the state and the assembly polls to be held next year. The Trinamool Congress has been buffeted by a series of arrests of its top leaders including minister Madan Mitra by the CBI in the Saradha chit fund scam.
