Bhabanipur Polls: Mamata keeps CM’s post after victory
Mamata Banerjee yesterday cemented her position as Chief Minister of West Bengal for the third consecutive time by winning the bypoll in Bhabanipur assembly constituency in Kolkata by a record margin, five months after a stunning defeat in the assembly elections in Nandigram.
Mamata, the Trinamool Congress supremo, won the bypoll in Bhabanipur by a massive margin 58,835 votes against her nearest rival and Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) candidate Priyanka Tibrewal.
The win in Bhabanipur bypoll was crucial for Mamata who needed to be elected a member of the assembly within the Constitution-stipulated time of six months to continue as the chief minister.
Although Mamata had spearheaded TMC to a landslide win in the assembly poll earlier this year, her own loss in Nandigram took some sheen away from it forcing her to contest the bypoll.
The Bhabanipur bypoll saw a one-sided contest. At the end of the 21st round of counting of votes polled for Bhabanipur byelection, Mamata secured 85,263 votes while Priyanka bagged 26,428 votes, including the postal ballots. CPI(M)'s Srijib Biswas managed to get just 4,226 votes.
According to the Election Commission, Mamata has secured 71.9% of the votes polled in Bhabanipur while Priyanka Tibrewal managed only 22.29 percent in an election where 53.32 percent of the 2,06,389 electorate turned up to exercise their franchise in the bypoll.
In winning Bhabanipur bypoll, Mamata broke her own previous records of winning margins. She had won in this constituency in 2011 (in a bypoll) by 52,213 votes and by 25,301 votes in 2016 assembly elections.
Mamata also made it a point that she won in all the seven municipal wards comprising Bhabanipur assembly constituency in the bypoll in contrast to 2016 assembly when she had trailed in a couple of wards. She also said the electorate of Bhabanipur voted for her despite 46 percent of the people of the constituency being non-Bengalis.
The Bhabanipur seat was vacated for her by state's Agriculture Minister Shovandeb Chattopadhyay who won the April vote by a margin of 28,000-plus votes.
Adding to the jubilation in the TMC camp yesterday was the fact the ruling party in the state was poised to wrest two other assembly constituencies Jangipur and Shamserganj with emphatic margins.
The bypoll in Bhabanipur was held on held on September 30.
The voting in Jangipur and Shamserganj had to be conducted also on September 30 due to the death of two candidates there.
Supporters of Trinamool Congress broke into celebrations outside the residence of Mamata in Kalighat which is part of Bhabanipur constituency.
Expressing her gratitude towards the people her constituency, Mamata asked her party workers to help the flood-affected people in districts saying that would be the real celebration.
"I thank the people of Bhabanipur and the people of this state and the country who had been waiting for this election result. Our victory inspires me to work more for people. If our workers want to celebrate, they should do so by helping the flood-affected people in the districts. That will be the real celebration," Mamata told TMC supporters and the media outside her house.
But even in her hour of triumph in Bhabanipur yesterday, the defeat in Nandigram to BJP's Suvendu Adhikari by 1,956 votes in May was on Mamata's mind.
"The people of Bhabanipur gave a befitting reply to the conspiracy that was hatched in Nandigram," the Trinamool Congress chief said. She has challenged the Nandigram verdict in court.
Priyanka acknowledged that BJP's ground-level mobilization was weak in Bhabanipur. We have to improve this," she told the media after her defeat.
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