Mehboob (left) after winning the by-election on Wednesday. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, April 16: The Congress has retained the Kharba Assembly seat by defeating its nearest rival the CPM by 10,393 votes in the by-election. BJP and Trinamul Congress candidates have had to forfeit their deposits.

The by-election, necessitated by Congress MLA Mahababul Haque’s death, was held on April 12. The Congress has been winning the seat since 1996.

Congress candidate and Haque’s son Asif Mehboob had been leading from the very first round of counting that was held today. He bagged 67,067 votes, while CPM candidate Anjumanara Bibi got 56,674. The BJP and Trinamul candidates managed 6,985 and 4,547 votes respectively.

“This is the first victory of the Congress after Priyada (PCC chief Priya Ranjan Das Munshi) took over. It’s a fitting reply to those who thought that the Congress had lost its relevance in Bengal and will strengthen our resolve for a better show in the panchayat polls,’’ said party spokesperson Subrata Mukherjee.

Asit Bose, a close aide of Das Munshi in Malda, said: “Earlier, we had to depend on the clout of Barkatda (the late A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury, a former Union minister) to win elections in Malda. Now we have got a suitable alternative in Priyada.”

The district secretary of the CPM, Jiban Moitra, saw “nothing unusual” in the Congress’s victory. The CPM had never won the seat, he said.

Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said: “The Congress had helped the CPM send its nominee to the Rajya Sabha recently. In return, the CPM has facilitated the Congress’s victory in Kharba.”