Bengal bypolls: Trinamool candidates declared elected from Naihati, Sitai; leading in other four seats too

Trinamool Congress candidates Sanat Dey and Sangita Roy were on Saturday declared elected from the Naihati constituency in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district and Sitai constituency in Cooch Behar district, and party candidates were ahead in the other four Assembly seats too where bypolls were held on November 13.

In Nahati, Dey defeated his nearest rival, BJP’s Rupak Mitra by a margin of 48,912 votes. Left Front-supported CPI-M-L candidate Dabajyoti Majumder and the Congress’ Paresh Nath Sarkar ended in the third and fourth positions, respectively, and forfeited their deposits.

After being announced as the winner, Dey dedicated his victory to the charisma of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the tremendous development work undertaken by the state government under her leadership.

Dey’s winning margin surpassed that of erstwhile Trinamool legislator, Partha Bhowmik, who won in the 2021 Assembly elections of 18,675 votes.

Naihati went for the bypolls after Bhowmik resigned as the legislator after being elected from Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency in the general elections earlier this year.

In Sitai, Roy was declared elected by a massive margin of 1,30,156 votes, defeating her nearest rival, BJP’s Dipak Kumar Roy. Congress candidate Harihar Roy Singha and the All India Forward Bloc candidate Arun Kumar Barma came in the third and fourth positions, respectively, and forfeited their deposits too.

Roy’s winning margin far surpassed that of the victory margin of her husband and the erstwhile Trinamool legislator, Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia, in the 2021 Assembly elections as he had won by just 10,112 votes. Sitai went for bypolls after Basunia resigned as the legislator after being elected from the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha constituency in the general elections this year.

As per the trends available so far, Trinamool Congress candidates are way ahead in the remaining four constituencies too – Madarihat in Alipurduar, Haroa in North 24 Parganas, Taldangra in Bankura district, and Medinipur in Paschim Medinipur district.

Barring Haroa, where the Left Front-supported All India Secular Front candidate Piyarul Islam is in the second position, the BJP candidates are in the second position in the remaining four constituencies.

Celebrations have already started at different Trinamool party offices, including the area in front of the residence of Mamata Banerjee in south Kolkata, as from the trend it has become clear that the ruling party is all set to make a clean sweep.

Trinamool leaders have started claiming that the results show that the voters have rejected the attempts by the opposition parties to malign the state government and the ruling party over the ghastly rape and murder of a junior doctor of R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata in August this year.

(With inputs from IANS)