TMC sweeps West Bengal bypolls, wins all four seats
TMC candidates Krishna Kalyani, Madhuparna Thakur, Mukut Mani Adhikari, and Supti Pandey secured victories in Raiganj, Bagda, Ranaghat Dakshin, and Maniktala, respectively.
In Raiganj in the Uttar Dinajpur district, Krishna Kalyani won by a margin of 50,077 votes over his nearest BJP rival, Manas Kumar Ghosh. Kalyani received 86,479 votes, while Ghosh garnered 36,402 votes.
Madhuparna Thakur won the Bagda assembly seat in the North 24 Parganas district, defeating Binay Kumar Biswas of the BJP by 33,455 votes. Thakur secured 1,07,706 votes, while Biswas received 74,251 votes. This victory marks the first time the TMC has won the Bagda seat in eight years.
Mukut Mani Adhikari of the TMC won the Ranaghat Dakshin assembly seat, defeating BJP nominee Manoj Kumar Biswas by 39,048 votes.
Supti Pandey won in the Maniktala seat in Kolkata, with a margin of over 30000 votes over her nearest rival, Kalyan Chaubey of the BJP.
The bypolls for these seats were held on July 10, 2024, following vacancies created by the resignations of incumbent MLAs who contested in the Lok Sabha elections on a TMC ticket.
The polling for the by-elections in 13 Assembly constituencies across seven states recorded moderate to high turnout.
The states included Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh, besides West Bengal.
In response to the bypoll results, BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said the party would introspect on its performance, citing alleged irregularities and a lack of free and fair elections. TMC leader Kunal Ghosh dismissed these allegations as baseless, attributing the BJP's losses to the electorate's rejection of the party.
The bypoll results come a month after TMC's success in the Lok Sabha elections, where the party increased its tally from 22 seats in 2019 to 29 seats in 2024.
