TMC Wins All 3 Bypoll Seats; Vote Against Arrogance, Says Mamata

‘One, two, three, get rid of the BJP’, said the West Bengal chief minister.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. 

(Photo: Reuters)

It was a clean sweep for Trinamool Congress in the bypolls for three Assembly seats in West Bengal. The constituencies of Karimpur, Kharagpur Sadar and Kaliaganj voted on 25 November. The three seats saw a total 78 percent polling.

The Trinamool Congress’ Pradip Sarkar and Tapan Deb Singha won Kharagpur Sadar and Kaliyaganj respectively by 20,811 and 2,034 votes. The party’s Bimlendu Sinha Roy beat the BJP’s Vice President Jay Prakash Majumdar by 23,956 votes.

The bypolls for the Karimpur and Kharagpur Sadar seats were necessitated by their respective MLAs – the Trinamool Congress’ Mahua Moitra and the BJP’s State President Dilip Ghosh – being elected as Members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha elections which concluded in May 2019.

Bypolls in Kaliaganj were being held due to the death of sitting Congress MLA, Parmathanath Roy.

This is the first time ever that the Trinamool Congress is winning Kaliaganj and the Kharagpur Sadar seats.

It is also the first election campaign of the TMC that was handled by poll strategist Prashant Kishor’s Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC). The win also comes as a relief for the TMC after the BJP won 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the general elections held in May.

With constituencies predominantly in the border districts, the National Register of Citizens (NRC) played a major deterrent for the BJP in these polls after the party came under criticism following news that many Hindus were left out of the Assam NRC.

‘Politics Of Arrogance Will Not Work’: Mamata Banerjee

‘Ek, dui, teen, BJP ke biday din’ (‘One two three, get rid of the BJP’), said West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee, reacting to the results of the bypolls.

“This is a victory of people. This is a victory for development. Politics of arrogance will not work. People have rejected the BJP.”

Mamata Banerjee on Trinamool Congress winning all three bypolls in West Bengal.

She also added that her party had won the vote of all sections including minorities, adivasis, Rajbanshis, and non-Bengalis.