Both ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP on Sunday received a shot in their arm ahead of the next year’s panchayat elections even as the ruling party won the Sabang Assembly by-elections vacated by former Congress MLA Manas Bhunia who later joined the Trinamool Congress and got rewarded with a Rajya Sabha seat.
The BJP though ended up in the losing side had reasons to cheer as it increased its tally more than seven fold --- from 2016 --- finishing a close third behind Trinamool’s nearest rival the Left. The Congress ended up a distant fourth forfeiting its deposit.
Trinamool candidate Geeta Rani Bhunia wife of Manas Bhunia defeated her nearest rival Rita Mandal of the CPI(M) by a whopping 64,000 votes --- albeit amid allegations of rampant rigging and booth capturing.
Bhunia polled 1.06 lakh votes --- little more than 51 percent of the total vote polled --- while Mandal got 42,000 votes. The BJP came a close third with 37,000 votes whereas the Congress candidate got about 18,000 votes.
While the Trinamool got more than 51 percent votes the Left polled 20 per cent and the BJP secured 18 per cent votes leaving 9 percent for the Congress though the entire lot of the opposition parties complained how about 150 booths had literally been captured by the Trinamool’s bike-borne goons.
“The whole constituency was taken over by the Trinamool’s biker gangs that came from the neighbouring East Midnapore district and stopped our voters from voting,” Mandal said while her claim was seconded by BJP’s Antara Bhattacharya.
“The people wanted to vote against the traitors like the Bhunia’s but they were not allowed to do so as the central forces were not put to use at all. Local SP Bharati Ghosh who acts more as the Trinamool district president allowed the booths to go into the hands of the Trinamool goons,” Congress candidate Chiranjib Bhowmick.
The by-election assumed importance as it took place ahead of the next year’s panchayat polls and Uluberia Assembly elections.
Reacting to the results Manas Bhunia took a jibe at BJP leader Mukul Roy who had recently left the Trinamool Congress saying “there were people who tried to grow mukul (meaning bud in Bengali) for the BJP but failed. The effort has been nipped in the bud. BJP’s bud has fallen in the face of a storm of development ushered by Mamata Banerjee. After Gujarat Sabang has shown that BJP’s has started.”