The ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal wrested the Sabang Assembly seat from the Congress on December 24 by defeating its nearest rival, the CPI(M), by a massive margin of over 64,000 votes.
While the Trinamool candidate Gita Rani Bhunia secured 1,06,179 votes, her closest rival, Rita Mandal of the CPI(M), bagged 41,987 votes.
Antara Bhattacharya of the BJP bagged 37,476 votes and the Congress’ Chiranjib Bhowmick secured 18,060 votes, West Midnapore District Magistrate (DM) Jagdish Prasad Meena said.
The results came as a booster for the Trinamool and the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government, ahead of the panchayat polls and two other bypolls — in Noapara Assembly constituency and Uluberia Lok Sabha seat -- due early next year.
The bypoll was necessitated after former Congress MLA Manas Bhunia defected to the Trinamool earlier this year and became a Rajya Sabha MP.
Trinamool candidate Ms. Gita Rani is the wife of Mr. Bhunia. She has managed to win the bypoll by an even better margin than her husband’s in the 2016 Assembly election.
Mr. Bhunia, who had fought the Assembly polls as an alliance candidate of the Congress and CPI(M)-led Left Front, had won the seat by a margin of over 50,000 votes. The Trinamool, which had secured the second position in Sabang in the Assembly election with 36% votes, increased its ballot share by 15% this time.
The BJP, which had received only 5,610 votes in the Assembly election, also increased its vote share, securing nearly 18% of the total votes polls.
The bypoll results brought some relief to the beleaguered Left Front, which has been losing its ground in the State to the BJP.
The biggest jolt was to the Congress, which not only lost one of its citadels to the Trinamool, but also finished a distant fourth in the bypoll. Sabang has been a Congress stronghold since 1957.
