Bengal Bypolls: 4-0 TMC Win as Expected, Say Analysts, But Crushing Defeats in Dinhata, Gosaba Will Hurt BJP

With massive victory margins in Gosaba and Dinhata, West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress on Tuesday reinforced its grip on the state as it bagged all four assembly constituencies where bypolls took place on October 30. The TMC now has 217 of the total 294 seats.

Analysts say the results were largely expected as the TMC had an edge because of various reasons, including its thumping mandate in the April-May assembly elections that saw a bitter tussle with the Bharatiya Janata Party as well as a 3-0 win in bypolls held about a month ago. This performance will further boost the party’s plans to take on the BJP nationally, they opine.

Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee has instructed party workers not to carry out any victory rallies.

Chief minister and TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee took to Twitter to congratulate the victors, while there also appeared to be a dig at rival BJP.

Trinamool Rajya Sabha member Derek O’Brien too mocked the saffron party on the microblogging site.

The TMC got around 77% of the votes on the four seats while the massive victory margins in Dinhata and Gosaba have created a buzz.

Dinhata

TMC’s Udayan Guha has won the Dinhata constituency by a whopping 1,64,089 votes. Interestingly, this seat in North Bengal has a strong presence of the Rajbongshi community and it is the place from where the BJP began making inroads into the state. Dinhata is part of the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat that was won by the saffron party in the 2019 general elections. The BJP got 1,14,981 or 50.37% votes here while the TMC secured 99,442 or 43.57%.

The BJP’s Nisith Pramanik won the parliamentary seat and the party asked him to contest the assembly polls this year from Dinhata. He emerged victorious yet again, albeit by a wafer-thin margin of 57 votes, and later resigned to continue as an MP, which necessitated the bypoll. This time, the BJP has lost the union minister of state for home’s own booth too.

The TMC wants to regain control of North Bengal and political analysts say that is why the party went all out to win this seat and that has prompted this whopping victory margin.

“I knew the margin will cross a lakh because the BJP has not done anything and will not do anything, that is clear,” Guha told News18.

The BJP though has claimed that the ruling party did not allow many people to vote this time.

The crushing defeat in Dinhata will force the BJP to reassess its situation, analysts say.

Of the 9 assembly seats in Cooch Behar, the BJP won 7 in the April-May elections and the TMC 2. Now the BJP has 6 and Trinamool 3.

Gosaba

As counting was about to start in Gosaba, BJP candidate Palash Rana said free and fair voting had not taken place and there was no point in expecting a good result for his party. The TMC’s Subrata Mondal ended up winning the seat by 93,832 votes. Trinamool leader Jayanta Naskar had won the constituency by 23,709 votes in the assembly polls, with the TMC getting 54% of the votes and the BJP 42%. Naskar’s death prompted the bypoll.

The area is considered the bastion of Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek. During the poll campaign, he had said, “I want Gosaba to give us the biggest victory margin.”

Following his win, Mondal said, “We will have to work for the people…Abhishek Banerjee instructed that no victory rallies should take place.”

The BJP, however, alleged here too that many people were prevented from voting.

Khardah

This was originally the seat of Bengal’s finance minister Amit Mitra who did not contest this time. TMC’s Kajal Sinha won the constituency by a margin of 28,000 votes in the April-May elections. His death necessitated a bypoll.

Trinamool leader Sovandeb Chatterjee was the party candidate here after he resigned from the Bhabanipur seat that he had won in the assembly elections so Mamata Banerjee could contest there in the bypolls held a month ago. The TMC chief needed to win the seat to keep her CM post as she had lost the April-May election from Nandigram.

The victory margin for the TMC from Khardah has gone over 94,000 votes. Veteran party leader Saugata Roy said it’s the Mamata wave at work.

Santipur

The BJP had won the Santipur seat in the assembly elections by about 15,000 votes. The winning candidate Jagannath Sarkar resigned to retain his MP seat and so a bypoll had to be arranged.

Santipur was considered a stronghold of the BJP but Trinamool has won here by a margin of 63,892 votes.

The TMC was looking for a 4-0 win in the bypolls and has emerged successful. The Dinhata loss in particular comes as a setback for the BJP. Party leader Jay Prakash Majumdar said, “In bypolls, generally the mandate goes to the ruling party, and here they have not allowed people to vote.”

Taking everything into consideration, analysts feel, the BJP will have to renew its focus on North Bengal.

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