NEW DELHI: The win in the by elections has come as a major relief for West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee who has tweeted her glee, describing the victory as a “miracle.” The Bharatiya Janata party that had fielded a former minister in her government Manjul Krishna Thakur for the Bongaon (SC) Lok Sabha seat, with the prestige fight, going convincingly (over two lakh votes ahead) in favour of the Trinamool Congress candidate Mamatabala Thakur.
The BJP that has gained ground in West Bengal had worked hard to win the Lok Sabha seat. However, it trailed third behind its nearest CPI(M) rival who was marginally ahead. The Congress, of course, was fourth in the race. However, the results showed that the slide down for the CPI(M) has not stopped.
The TMC also won the by election for the Krishnaganj Assembly seat, again with a good margin of over 37,000 votes over its nearest BJP rival. Here the CPI(M) was reduced to the third position, from the second it had held in the last Assembly elections.
The victory has particularly elated Banerjee who has locked horns with the BJP. She said the vote was a “rejection of the conspiracy by Delhi and a slanderous campaign by the BJP and a section of the media”. She went on to say, “I salute Maa, Mati, Manush. I salute our workers. This is people's magic. This is a miracle," she said.
The BJP had gained a sizeable vote share during the Lok Sabha elections, and West Bengal is a key state where it has been working to build on this. However, the results of the bypolls have not been as planned with the TMC surging ahead despite the efforts of the BJP top brass.
The by elections come as a precursor to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation polls and the Assembly elections next year. Banerjee has been fighting the BJP back on the issues of secularism, with the arrests of senior TMC leaders on charges of graft clearing not making a difference to her popularity. In fact, quite the opposite, with the high margins of victory making it clear that the vote was a decisive mandate in her favour. The other parties fell in the rankings with the TMC seeming to have gained some of the ground lost. Banerjee is now optimistic that the results will go into uniting the rank and file in her party, for a good tough campaign in the municipal and Assembly elections.