By Express News Service
KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has won the Bhowanipore by-election by a margin of 58,389 votes.
Banerjee, the TMC candidate for the Bhabanipur seat in south Kolkata, secured 84,709 votes, after 21st and final round of counting.
Mamata broke her party’s victory margin record of 49,936 votes in 2011 Assembly elections, the year she derailed LF’s 34-year regime.
The TMC was also leading in Murshidabad’s Samserganj and Jangipur where counting of votes for assembly elections was underway.
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Banerjee, the TMC candidate for the Bhabanipur seat in south Kolkata, secured 84,709 votes.
Her nearest rival, BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal, secured 26,320 votes, while Srijib Biswas of the CPI(M) secured 4201 votes.
Although Banerjee claimed victory in a press conference outside her residence, the EC is yet to officially announce the results as they are yet to compile the votes secured through postal ballots.
“I want to thank the people of Bhabanipur, West Bengal and West Bengal, who were waiting for these results. The people of Bhabanipur 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,” she said.
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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 Banerjee’s defeat in Nandigram, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, a state minister, vacated the Bhabanipur seat to facilitate her return to the assembly from there.
The TMC is also ahead in Murshidabad’s Samserganj and Jangipur constituencies, where votes are being counted for the assembly elections.
In Samserganj, TMC candidate Amirul Islam is leading by 25 195 votes after the twenty-two round of counting.
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He secured 91826 votes, while his nearest rival, Zaidur Rahaman of the Congress, got 66,631.
Jangipur’s TMC nominee Jakir Hossain is leading by a massive margin of 64,529 votes after the twenty-one rounds of counting.
Hossain secured 1,00,560 votes, and his nearest rival, BJP’s Sujit Das, got 36, 031.
As reports of Banerjee’s massive lead came in, TMC supporters hit streets across the state to celebrate.
On the other side, the state offices of the BJP and the CPI (M) wore a deserted look.
Voting in the seats was held on September 30.
(With PTI Inputs)
