Trinamul Congress is all set to extend its official tally of MLAs to 218 as the party is leading comfortably in the October 30 bypolls to all the four Assembly seats—Dinhata, Santipur, Khardaha and Gosaba--- counting of which is underway on Tuesday.
The final outcome would draw loud cheers from the ruling camp as the party is most likely to wrest the seats of Dinhata and Santipur, which the BJP had won during the Assembly polls.
TRINAMUL LEADS
Khardaha: 76,751
Santipur:28,606
Dinhata: 1,63,005
Gosaba: 1,41,893
In Dinhata, where the BJP nominee and party’s Cooch Behar MP Nisith Pramanik, now a junior minister in the Union home ministry, had won by the thinnest margin of just 57 votes, Trinamul’s Udayan Guha has a lead of over 1.63 lakh votes. In the southern-most tip of Gosaba too Trinamul has a healthy lead of over 1.41 lakh votes.
In the remaining too constituencies, Santipur and Khardaha, the party is in a comfortable position and is unlikely to face any upheaval.
TMC supremo and chief minister Mamata Banerjee took to twitter to express her happiness over the outcome of the four bypolls. In her message, she termed the verdict in favour of her party as people's victory.
”My heartiest congratulations to all the four winning candidates! This victory is people's victory, as it shows how Bengal will always choose development and unity over propaganda and hate politics. With people's blessings, we promise to continue taking Bengal to greater heights!” she said on the social media platform.
The loss of the two seats is going to hit the BJP hard as it has come within Lok Sabha constituencies of the party’s two MPs, Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar, which will keep the party worried about the Lok Sabha elections three years from now.
Since the Assembly election results were declared on May 2, four MLAs from the BJP have switched sides. The outcome of the bypoll will have no impact on the political status of either parties, but would send a message for the polls to be held in the future, most notably the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Mamata Banerjee File picture
While Khardaha and Gosaba went to Trinamul in the Assembly elections, Santipur and Dinhata were won by the BJP. Two of the party MPs who had contested and won the Assemblies later resigned to retain their Lok Sabha seats. In Dinhata, the victory margin was a mere 57 votes.
The BJP, which has seen an exodus of its winning candidates to the ruling Trinamul (though it can be said in favour of the BJP that the turncoat MLAs were from Trinamul who had switched sides believing the BJP to would come to power), needs to retain the two seats it had won previously to plug the leaking boat that the BJP’s legislative party has turned into.
For Mamata, on the other hand, a 4-0 result is important keeping the future in mind. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, if she has to be a contender for the Prime Minister’s post, the Trinamul has to do far better than it did in 2019. A repeat of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when Trinamul won 22 and 18 seats went to the BJP will not help her national aspirations.
Mamata needs to keep the BJP in check in Bengal electorally, not politically. That is why RSS shakhas have increased in the last 10 years that the Trinamul has been in power. That is why the Trinamul is aiming for a clean sweep in these bypolls.
