LANDSLIDE VICTORY FOR MAMATA IN BHABANIPUR
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee won the prestige battle at Bhabanipur by beating her previous record. She won the high-stakes bypoll — that allows her to continue in office — by more than 58,000 votes. “We have won Bhabanipur by 58,835 votes and registered victory in every ward of the constituency,” said
Banerjee after the results were announced.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee won the prestige battle at Bhabanipur by beating her previous record. She won the high-stakes bypoll — that allows her to continue in office — by more than 58,000 votes. “We have won Bhabanipur by 58,835 votes and registered victory in every ward of the constituency,” said Banerjee after the poll results was announced Sunday afternoon.
“About 46 per cent of the people in the constituency are non-bengalis and they have all voted for me,” she added.
Her nearest rival, Priyanka Tibrewal, from the BJP, got 26,428 votes while Shrijeeb Biswas from the CPI(M) got just 4,226 votes. Tibrewal tweeted, “I am overwhelmed by the affection of people and commitment of my party leadership and workers who put in many times more effort than myself. I express my deep sense of gratitude… I rededicate with greater vigour to be in service of people.”
In the recently concluded assembly elections, Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay from the Trinamool won from Bhabanipur by 28,719 votes. He resigned from his seat to make way for Banerjee, who lost narrowly in Nandigram, even as she led the party to a landslide victory in the state. To remain her chair, she had to be elected within six months.
The results, however, show that Banerjee not only ensured her stay in office, but managed to beat her own margin of 54,213 votes in the by-poll of 2011 – a historic year that brought the curtains down on a 34-year Left rule in the state. In 2016, she had won by a margin of 25,301 votes. In the assembly polls — Samserganj and Jangipur — the Trinamool Congress won by 26,379 votes and 92,480 votes, respectively. In 2016, it had won Samserganj by 1,780 votes and Jangipur by 20,633 votes.
However, all eyes were on the highprofile Bhabanipur constituency even though Banerjee’s win was almost certain. A cosmopolitan constituency with Marwaris, Gujaratis, Punjabis and other non-bengalis accounting for more than 40 per cent, it had given the BJP a slender lead of 185 votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.