Stunning Mamata Banerjee, the BJP opened its account in the West Bengal Assembly for the first time in 15 years as party candidate Shamik Bhattacharya trounced Trinamool Congress candidate Dipendu Biswas from Basirhat South Assembly seat on Tuesday. Before this, Badal Bhattacharya of the BJP had won from a seat in North 24 Parganas in 1999, but then the BJP was in alliance with the Trinamool Congress.
The BJP fared good even on the other seat of Chowringhee in north-central Kolkata. The BJP ended in an optimistic note finishing second behind the Trinamool Congress whose candidate Naina Bandopadhyay, wife of Trinamool MP Sudip Bandopadhyay, won by a margin of about 14,000 votes.
The Congress finished third and the left forfeited its deposit leading experts to wonder whether the BJP was fast taking the main Opposition's slot in the State. Bhattacharya, who defeated Biswas by a margin of about 1,742 votes, single-handedly took on State Ministers who camped at Basirhat for days together. It is the same constituency where 22 BJP men were injured after they were shot at by Trinamool goons a few days after Prime Minister Modi’s swearing-in.
“This is the victory of the people, this is a victory for peace against sustained terror carried out by the ruling party, it is a victory representing a political consciousness that has evolved against ongoing violence, repression and strong-arm politics of the ruling party,” Bhattacharya said dedicating his win to the people of his constituency. The only saving grace for the Trinamool was that it managed to reduce BJP’s victory margin by about 30,000 votes if one were to go by this year’s Parliamentary election results when the BJP led from the seat by a huge margin of 33,000 votes.
The left continued to bleed much the same way it started in 2009 general elections losing its deposit in Chowringhee and ending in the third place at Basirhat, which it lost to the BJP this time round after retaining it for a record 11 successive terms years or so. Buoyed by the party’s performance, BJP central observer for Bengal Siddhar-thnath Singh said the by-elections would definitely work as the launching pad for the party in the coming civic elections and 2016 Assembly polls.
Party State president Rahul Sinha said the BJP could have won the Chowringhee seat as well "if they would not have played the communal card by inciting the minorities of the area."
However, Trinamool general secretary Mukul Roy refused to accept BJP's rise saying "both the election results point towards the fact that there is no BJP wave in Bengal and that the Trinamool Congress still rules the roost in the State. We have been able to reduce the victory margin more than 30,000 votes in Basrihat besides winning Chowringhee where we had trailed in the general elections. This itself proves that we are very much in control."