West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress today surged ahead of its nearest contender, the BJP, in Uluberia Lok Sabha bypoll by a massive margin of 3.6 lakh votes, an Election Commission official said. After 14 rounds of counting, TMC candidate Sajda Ahmed bagged 5,88,211 votes.
Her nearest rival, Anupam Mallik of the BJP, secured 2,18,807 votes, he said. CPI(M)nominee SK Sabiruddin Molla and Congress candidate SK Madassar Hossain Warsi received 1,03,015 and 16,784 votes respectively. The ruling party also won the Noapara assembly bypoll, earlier in the day. While TMC candidate Sunil Singh secured 1,01,729 votes in Noapara, BJP nominee Sandip Banerjee received 38,711 votes. Gargi Chatterjee of the CPI(M)came third with 35,497 votes. The by-elections were necessitated following the deaths of Sultan Ahmed, TMC MP from Uluberia Lok Sabha constituency in Howrah district, and Madhusudan Ghose, Congress MLA from Noapara assembly seat in North 24 Parganas district. Sajda Ahmed, the Trinamool candidate from the parliamentary seat, is the wife of Sultan Ahmed.
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