TMC’s Shatrughan Sinha on Saturday, 16 April, registered a historic victory in the Asansol Lok Sabha by-election, winning with a margin of over 2 lakh votes. This marks the Trinamool Congress' first win on the Asansol Lok Sabha seat.
Besides Asansol Lok Sabha seat, there were four Assembly seats across as many states that had also gone for polls on 12 April: West Bengal's Ballygunge, Chhattisgarh's Khairagarh, Bihar's Bochahan, and Maharashtra's Kolhapur North.
The TMC scored a victory on the Ballygunge seat, the Congress swept Khairagarh and North Kohlapur, while the RJD won Bochahan.
TMC's Decisive Victory on 2 WB Seats: Mamata Banerjee Thanks Voters
Actor-turned-politician Sinha was fielded against BJP’s Agnimitra Paul, and defeated the latter by 3,03,209 votes, as per the EC. Accepting defeat, Paul said, “There were some shortcomings from our end because of which we had to face defeat...We'll work at grassroots levels in the forthcoming days.”
In the previous two elections, 2014 and 2019, Babul Supriyo had won this seat as a BJP candidate.
Babul Supriyo, who quit the BJP to join the TMC last year, emerged on victorious Ballygunge seat. He defeated CPI(M) candidate Saira Shah Halim by a margin of 20,228 votes.
TMC chief Mamata Banerjee took to Twitter to thank the people of Asansol for a decisive mandate. "I sincerely thank the electors of the Asansol Parliamentary Constituency and the Ballygunge Assembly Constituency for giving decisive mandate to AITC party candidates," she said.
Meanwhile, Supriyo congratulated Sinha and wrote on Twitter, "Wish to see the faces of those jealous BJP 'Netas' who never acknowledged my hard work for a place I love-Asansol & mocked me by saying, "Even a Matchstick standing for @BJP4India wud win in Asansol. Love you Asansol for serving them a Slap in a platter."
Bypolls in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Bihar
In the results declared on Saturday, the Congress retained the Kolhapur North Assembly seat, with its candidate Jadhav Jayshri Chandrakant defeating the BJP's Satyajeet Kadam by over 18,000 votes.
The RJD won Bihar's Bochahan seat, and the party thanked its voters on Twitter.
RJD candidate Amar Paswan, whose father Musafir Paswan’s death had necessitated the by-election, polled 82,116 votes while his nearest BJP rival Baby Kumari got only 45,353.
In Chhattisgarh's Khairagarh Assembly bypoll, the ruling Congress' candidate Yashoda Nilamber Verma won by a margin of nearly 20,000 votes.
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