West Bengal election results 2019: Bypolls spring BJP surprise in two assembly constituencies

Assembly bypolls across eight constituencies in the state threw up predictable winners barring two where the BJP sprung a surprise. While Pawan Kumar Singh, son of defector Arjun Singh who won the Barrackpore Lok Sabha seat, upstaged Trinamool veteran Madan Mitra at Bhatpara, Niraj Zimba beat Benoy Tamang, who fought as an independent candidate, in Darjeeling. Zimba is also a GNLF leader.

Arjun Singh’s home turf Bhatpara was the only assembly segment in the Barrackpore seat where BJP had a lead over Trinamool by around 2,500 votes. BJP, however, managed to increase at least 6,000 votes in each segment, upping the overall vote share by 18.3%.
In the Darjeeling bypolls, Zimba had a big margin and secured more than 60% of the votes. He termed the victory margin a miracle and said the people had not forgotten the agitation of 2017 and “the state government’s atrocities”.
“The expectation was definitely high, but the victory margin is tremendous. It is a phenomenal verdict by the people who have not forg-otten the agitation and that contributed 99% to my victory,” Zimba said.
Tamang was gracious in defeat and said he would sit with central committee leaders of his party to see what went wrong. “I want to congratulate Niraj Zimba and Raju Bista on their victory. I worked for the people for 17 months, yet got rejected. I accept their decision, but will delibe-rate with leaders on why this happened,” he said, adding that the BJP wave caught them off-guard.
Assembly bypolls were also held in Habibpur, Islampur, Kandi, Kishanganj, Nowda and Uluberia (East).