Rahul Sinha

Calcutta, June 5: The BJP bagged a seat each in Durgapur and Nalhati and retained another in Dhupguri, leading the party to claim that its support base was growing in some pockets of Bengal.

In the 2007 civic elections, the BJP had won just one ward in Dhupguri.

“We fielded 90 nominees in five civic bodies — barring Cooper’s Camp — of whom one candidate each won in Durgapur and Nalhati. Besides, we retained our seat in Jalpaiguri’s Dhupguri municipality,” said state BJP president Rahul Sinha tonight. “The victory of our three candidates may seem like a small achievement but it proves we cannot be denied political space in some pockets of Bengal.”

Sinha said the BJP candidates won because people voted for them discarding the Trinamul Congress, the Congress and the Left.

BJP leader Tapan Sikdar claimed tonight that his party was in third position in Haldia in terms of votes polled, leaving the Congress behind.

“We performed better than the Congress in Haldia, reflecting our greater acceptability to people in the port town,” Sikdar said.

“The scenario throws up a perspective that there is a possibility of our emergence as an alternative force in Bengal in the near future,” he added.

In the 2010 Calcutta Municipal Corporation elections, three BJP candidates won as councillors. The party drew a blank in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls and in last year’s Assembly elections.

A BJP leader from Durgapur claimed that former party president Rajnath Singh’s statements at a Calcutta rally last month when he said party MPs would back Trinamul’s demand for a bail-out package from the Centre for debt-ridden Bengal had helped get the votes of those people who “are concerned about the state’s poor financial position”.