Mamata Banerjee won the Bhabanipur Bypoll today with a record margin of 58,832 votes.
New Delhi:
Mamata Banerjee, still smarting from her defeat in Nandigram, won a record victory today from her regular seat in South Kolkata, Bhabanipur. The Chief Minister — who needed to win an assembly seat within six months to continue heading the government — won by a huge margin of 58,832 votes over her nearest rival, the BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal.
Ms Banerjee hailed the results by flashing three fingers — representing her election slogan of “Ma, Mati, Manush” — instead of the traditional victory sign.
“What is most heart-warming is, I have not lost in a single ward in the constituency,” she told the media after the counting for the last round was over.
“The last time, I had trailed in a couple of wards,” added the Trinamool chief, who contested from Bhabanipur both in 2011 and 2016.
Her big defeat in the assembly was in Nandigram – the place that catapulted her to power in 2011 – when she contested from there against Mr Adhikari.
The loss – by a margin of less than 2000 votes — was the big shocker in an election where the Trinamool Congress won a landslide victory, containing the BJP within less than 80 seats in place of the 200 they
aspired to.
Ms Banerjee later took the matter of Nandigram defeat to court, contending that Mr Adhikari’s election be declared void on grounds of “corrupt practices” including bribery, promotion of hatred and enmity, and seeking of votes on the basis of religion.
Today she referred to Nandigram, saying, “There were a lot of conspiracies against us in the April elections. We are grateful we won”.
“We are winning at Shamsherganj and Jangipur as well,” added the delighted Chief Minister, citing the two constituencies in Murshidabad where by-polls are being held after the deaths of two candidates.
