KOLKATA: The BJP came a distant second, while Left-Congress alliance lost its deposit in three of the four seats.
As Kalyan Choubey, BJP candidate for the Maniktala Assembly bypolls, waited in his car after losing the election by a wide margin on Saturday, a sea of Trinamool Congress activists surged around, banging on the car, shouting “go back” and “Jai Bangla” slogans. Choubey, also the All India Football Federation president, was among the BJP candidates who lost to the TMC in all the four Assembly seats—Maniktala, Bagda, Ranaghat Dakshin, and Raiganj—that were held on 10 July.
Chaubey’s car was finally escorted out by the TMC local councillor. Chaubey only had his security men and his election agent. No BJP supporters could be seen.
In all four seats which went for the byelections, the BJP came a distant second while Left-Congress alliance candidates lost their deposits in three of the four seats.
In Maniktala constituency in Kolkata, TMC candidate Supti Pande won by a margin of 62,312 votes against Chaubey. In Raiganj constituency in North Dinajpur district, TMC candidate Krishna Kalyani won by a margin of 50,077 votes. While Kalyani got 86,479 votes, BJP candidate Manas Kumar Ghosh received 36,402 votes. In Ranaghat-Dakshin constituency in Nadia district, TMC candidate Mukut Mani Adhikari won by a margin of 39,048 votes. While Adhikari bagged 113,533 votes, BJP candidate Manoj Kumar Biswas came second with 74,485 votes. In Bagdah constituency in North 24 Parganas district, TMC candidate Madhuparna Thakur won by a margin of 33,455 votes. While Thakur bagged 107,706 votes, BJP candidate Binay Kumar Biswas got 74,251 votes.
On paper, the BJP went to the polls with a distinct advantage. Of the four seats, except for the north Kolkata seat of Maniktala which fell vacant with the death of TMC veteran Sadhan Pande, the remaining three were won by the BJP in the 2021 Assembly elections. The three seats fell vacant after erstwhile BJP MLAs Kalyani from Raigunj, Adhikari from Ranaghat, and Biswajit Das of Bagda resigned from their posts to contest the Lok Sabha elections on a TMC ticket.
Even in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the 12 Lok Sabha seats that went to the BJP’s kitty included Raigunj, Ranaghat and Bongaon. Only Maniktala was with the TMC—which won the Calcutta North Lok Sabha seat handsomely.
“We will introspect the party’s performance. But the TMC did not allow free and fair elections and there were a lot of irregularities. The ruling party had unleashed a reign of terror,” BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said.
“The way our candidate was attacked on polling day, can it be said the polls were free and fair?” asked Shantanu Thakur, the BJP Lok Sabha MP from Bongaon. “The Trinamool Rajya Sabha Mamatabala Thakur has been allowed in the counting centre, but I was stopped.”
TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said: “The people have rejected the BJP in the last Lok Sabha polls in Bengal and the same thing has happened in the bypolls. The allegation that bypolls were not free and fair are just excuses to hide their own failures.”