Kolkata: Bengal witnessed a saffron surge Thursday as the BJP inflicted a deadly blow to state’s ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) by winning 16 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state and leading in two other, the results of which are to come Friday. TMC won 19 seats and was leading in three others till last reports came in.
The saffron party was giving the TMC a run for its money even in terms of vote share having polled 40.25 per cent of votes counted so far. The TMC has clinched 43.28 per cent. In the 2014 elections, the BJP’s vote share was close to 10%.
The four-party Left Front that ruled the state for 34 years till 2011 could manage a measly 7.8 per cent votes with its candidates losing deposits in all the seats but one. The Congress, however, fared better by bagging two seats with a vote share of 5.61 per cent.
The party’s sitting MP from Baharampur in Murshidabad district Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Malda South MP Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury managed to retain their respective seats.
In Asansol, Union Minister Babul Supriyo defeated TMC’s Moon Moon Sen by a whoping margin of 1,97,637 votes. While Supriyo got 6,33,378 votes, Moon Moon Sen polled 4,35,741.
BJP’s state unit chief Dilip Ghosh won the Midnapore seat by defeating TMC’s Manas Ranjan Bhunia by a margin of 88,952 votes. Ghosh secured 6,85,433 votes and Bhunia got 5,96,481.
Among other major winners for TMC were Bengali superstar Deepak Adhikari (Dev, Ghatal), Khalilur Rahman (Jangipur), debutant and actor Mimi Chakrabarty (Jadavpur) and sitting MP Sudip bandopadhaya (Kolkata, North).
The TMC however, suffered a stunning blow in the barrackpore constituency when former party member Arjun Singh, who had defected to the BJP, emerged triumphant. He defeated TMC’s former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi by a margin of 14,857 votes in a slose contest. Singh bagged 4,72,994 votes, while Trivedi could manage 4,58,137 votes.
Among the major gains for the BJP were Union Minister SS Ahluwalia, who defeated TMC’s Mamtaz Sanghamita in the Burdwan-Durgapur constituency by a slender margin of 2,439 votes. In Darjeeling, Raju Bista of BJP defeated TMC’s Amar Singh Rai by a massive margin of 4,13,443 votes.
There was another blow for the TMC when BJP’s Subhas Sarkar won the Bankura seat, defeating state minister Subrata Mukherjee, a veteran politician, by 1,74,333 votes.
The results seems to have shocked the TMC leadership, who declined to comment. As the trends indicated a setback for Banerjee, her residence at Kalighat and party headquarters off EM Bypass wore an abandoned look.
Banerjee, who defended her terrain like a tigress since becoming the Chief Minister in 2011, ending the Left Front’s unbroken 34-year rule, called a press conference at her home in the afternoon which was ‘cancelled’ without assigning any reason. Banerjee didn’t show up and a security guard curtly told journalists the interaction wouldn’t happen.
BJP’s Ghosh said the poll results have sounded the death knell for the Trinamool Congress government in the state and Mamata Banerjee’s party has lost the moral right to continue in office.
PTI
