Trinamul Congress has won all three Assembly seats in West Bengal with Trinamul Congress supremo and chief minister Mamata Banerjee winning by a record margin of 58,389 in Bhawanipore bypolls to retain her chair.

Miss Banerjee secured 84,709 votes while her nearest rival, BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal, secured 26,320 votes and Srijib Biswas of the CPI-M secured 4201 votes.

Advertisement

Trinamul Congress candidate Zakir Hossain has won Jangipur seat by a margin of 92,232 votes and TMC candidate Amirul Islam won by 26,111 votes in Samsherganj seat.

The Bhawanipore constituency, which was formed in 2011 after delimitation, has been a stronghold of the TMC since its inception and the Kalighat residence of Miss Banerjee, who had earlier won this seat twice, also falls under this constituency. In 2011, she had won by 54,213 votes.

“I want to thank the people of Bhawanipore and West Bengal, who were waiting for these results. The people of Bhawanipore have given a befitting reply to the conspiracy that was hatched to defeat me in Nandigram. I don’t want to say much on a sub-judice matter. The counting is over, and we have won the seat by a margin of 58832 votes,” Miss Banerjee said at a press conference outside her residence in Kalighat.

The chief minister had earlier lost the Nandigram elections narrowly to her former aide Suvendu Adhikari, now leader of the Opposition from the BJP in the state assembly. She has since filed a legal challenge to the election result. After her defeat, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, a state minister, vacated the Bhawanipore seat to facilitate her return to the assembly from there. The TMC had then won the seat in the April-May assembly polls by a margin of around 28,000 votes.

Miss Banerjee said that she had won in all the wards in Bhawanipore. “We have not lost in any ward in Bhawanipore. This is the first time that we have registered victory in every ward. This is very significant,” she said adding: I will not show V sign. I will show three fingers because I am not contesting alone. My colleagues in Jangipur and Samshergunj are also winning comprehensively:”

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin congratulated Miss Banerjee for her ‘resounding victory’ in the Bhabanipur by-poll.

As reports of Miss Banerjee’s victory came in TMC supporters hit street across the state to celebrate their victory. Infact her victory, which has come just five days ahead of Durga Puja, brought festive cheer as TMC supporters celebrated with green-coloured ‘gulal’ and danced to the beat of drums.

On the other hand, the state offices of the BJP and the CPI-M wore a deserted look.

The Election Commission has already directed the state government to prohibit victory celebrations and processions to prevent any incident of post-poll violence.

BJP’s Bhawanipore candidate Tibrewal had written to the Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court seeking preventive measures in connection with possible post-poll violence after results are declared. In the letter, she has sought strict orders to the Kolkata Police to take all precautionary measures to prevent any kind of violence post declaration of by-election result.