Soon after winning the Maheshtala by-elections, Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress on Thursday said its victory and BJP’s loss in Bengal and other places proclaimed the “beginning of the end of the saffron raj in the country.”
The Trinamool continued its winning streak in Bengal bagging the Maheshtala Assembly seat by a whopping margin of more than 62,000 votes even as the BJP steadily leapt to the second position displacing the left-Congress alliance polling about 41,900 votes. The Congress-backed CPI(M) candidate came a distant third.
Notwithstanding the large-scale criticism it had to digest in the recently concluded panchayat elections that saw unprecedented violence resulting in 29 deaths and more than 500 injuries the TMC increased its margin at Mahestala from about 10,000 votes in 2016 to about 62,000 votes polling about 1,04,500 votes this time round.
While TMC’s Dulal Das polled more than 1 lakh votes, BJP’s Sujit Ghosh a former CBI joint director got 41,987 votes. CPI(M)’s Prabhat Chowdhury finished a distant third with 31,000 votes attributing his party’s poor show to the increasing polarisation “thanks to the communal politics pursued by both the BJP and the Trinamool Congress.” Ghosh said his party failed to carry its message to the people hoping however, it would do well in 2019.
Hours later giving his reactions local Trinamool MP and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee roared, “there is no one in Bengal who can defeat Mamata Banerjee because she has won people’s heart by sheer hard work. Her performance has earned us this victory.”
Taking a dig at the BJP he said, “we have heard the BJP is eyeing Bengal which is of course their democratic right. But the problem is they have lost most of the seats in the by-elections which is a proof of the beginning of the end of the saffron raj in India.”
First the BJP should save its position in Delhi and then it should cast its eyes on Bengal, Banerjee said. “look how they have lost in UP, Bihar, Karnataka and even in Jharkhand. This trend is there to stay and the BJP’s days are ending.”
Meanwhile in an unrelated development alleged Trinamool workers continued to attack BJP men in Jangalmahal district of Purulia where they attacked two persons for doing saffron politics. Both of them were admitted to the local hospital.
In a related development the entire Balarampur block witnessed a complete shut-down on Thursday following the murder of a BJP worker by alleged Trinamool goons on Tuesday evening. BJP had called the bandh.