Political analysts also said the results were also largely expected owing to TMC’s thumping mandate in the April-May state Assembly polls that saw a bitter tussle with the BJP
The BJP unit in West Bengal is in a state of crisis. Some of the factors why the TMC had an edge in the bypoll results announced Sunday include turmoil in the BJP state unit over organisational authority and leadership.
Political analysts also said the results were also largely expected owing to TMC’s thumping mandate in the April-May state Assembly polls that saw a bitter tussle with the BJP as well as a 3-0 win in bypolls held about a month ago.
Why BJP in Bengal is in crisis
As per experts TMC’s performance can bolster the image of party chief and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to further take on the BJP nationally.
According to Election Commission data, the ruling TMC got 76.5 percent of the total polled votes today whereas the BJP, the second largest party in the state, managed to get only 14.5 percent of the votes.
In the eight phased state polls, the BJP secured about 38.1 percent votes and won 77 seats but came a distant second to the TMC which won 213 seats and secured 47.9 percent votes.
BJP faces desertions and infighting
Former Tripura and Meghalaya governor Tathagata Roy triggered a fresh row on Sunday when he said he felt “hatred” towards BJP Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya because “he has handed over West Bengal to Mamata Banerjee”.
Speaking to reporters outside the state BJP headquarters, Roy said, “I hate him and the hatred is still there. He is not coming back to West Bengal as far as I know. He still holds his post (of Bengal in-charge of the BJP) but as far as I know he won’t be there.”
Holding Vijayvargiya responsible for the state Assembly outcome, Roy said the TMC’s “thumping majority” was “to the credit of Vijayvargiya”.
He described the Bengal 2021 election results as “treachery by him”, meaning Vijayvargiya.
Worsening the turmoil, former state party president Dilip Ghosh reacted sharply to the return of turncoats to the TMC fold with senior leader Mukul Roy, who jumped ship from the TMC to the BJP in 2017, leading the pack.
The string of desertions prompted Ghosh to call the ones who joined the saffron party right before the state elections as ‘dalals’ or middlemen who were only seeking personal gain.
The target of Ghosh’s verbal salvo can be identified through a process of elimination, since he specifically referred to “wheeler-dealers” who had not, as yet, defected back to the party they originally came from.
“A lot of ‘dalals’ had joined our party before elections. Some have left. Some are still present are sabotaging the party. All will be asked to leave. They don’t want a strong BJP,” Ghosh said.
Party insiders confirmed that the attack was directed at Suvendu Adhikari, who is now the BJP Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly.
That the BJP high command has chosen not to respond to the pinpointed attacks by Roy and others post the election fiasco has contributed to the spiralling frustration and growing discontent.
Political analysts say the internal turmoil in the BJP in West Bengal is as much a crisis of confidence in the central leadership of the party as it is a crisis of confidence in the Centrally approved local structure of leadership.
Result of bypolls
The ruling Trinamool Congress has won all four Assembly constituencies – Santipur, Gosaba, Khardaha, and Dinhata in the bypolls held last Saturday, according to the Election Commission.
The two major victory for the TMC came in Dinhata and Santipur, where the Mamata Banerjee-led party wrested control of seats from the BJP, who won in the earlier Assembly polls.
Dinhata
Celebrations have begun in West Bengal as TMC’s Udayan Guha won the Dinhata Assembly seat by a margin of over 1.63 lakh votes against BJP candidate Palash Rana, who garnered mere 20,254 votes.
The bypoll to the Dinhata segment was necessitated after BJP MP Nisith Pramanik decided retain his Coochnehar Lok Sabha seat on being elevated as a Union minister of state during the recent Cabinet reshuffle.
The bypoll for this constituency grabbed the attenton of political experts. The BJP, earlier in the Assembly elections this year had wrested the seat by 57 votes. The saffron party had also bagged seven of the region’s eight Lok Sabha seats in 2019 and 30 of the 54 Assembly constituencies in the eight north Bengal districts.
Gosaba
TMC’s Subrata Mondal emerged victorious in the Gosaba seat in South 24 Parganas by a margin of 1,43,051 votes. Here, the TMC got 87 percent votes, while the BJP got only nine percent.
Khardah
The ruling party also retained the Khardah Assembly segment by winning the seat by an impressive margin of 93,832 votes.
In the Khardah Assembly segment, veteran TMC leader and state minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay defeated his nearest rival, BJP’s Joy Saha by a margin of 93,832 votes. Chattopadhyay secured 1,14,086 votes, whereas Saha managed to bag 20,254 votes.
The bypoll to this Assembly segment was necessitated following the death of the sitting TMC MLA.
Chattopadhyay, who had earlier won the Bhabanipur Assembly constituency, vacated the seat for West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to contest during the 30 September bypolls, to retain her membership of the State Assembly.
Mamata saw victory Banerjee with a thumping majority and decimated BJP’s Priyanka Tibrewal.
Santipur
While the TMC had won Gosaba and Khardaha constituencues during the Assembly elections in the state earlier this year, Santipur, apart from Dinhata, was also in the control of the BJP.
TMC’s Braja Kishor Goswami defeated Niranjan Biswas by a margin of 64,022 votes in Santipur in Nadia district.
Bypolls to Santipur were held as sitting BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar did not take oath as MLA after winning in the Assembly polls earlier this year to retain his Parliamentarian’s chair.
Whereas, elections in Khardaha and Gosaba constituencies were held following the deaths of TMC MLAs Kajal Sinha and Jayanata Naskar respectively due to COVID-19 .
How TMC responded
Mamata congratulated the winning candidates and said in a tweet, “Bengal will always choose development and unity over propaganda and hate politics”.
Taking a swipe at Union home minister Amit Shah, Trinamool Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien tweeted that the BJP even lost in the home booth of Union minister of state Nisith Pramanik, as he said that Trinamool rebounded with a margin of more than 1.5 lakh votes.
How the bypoll results affect TMC and BJP now
However, with the return of five BJP legislators to the Mamata Banerjee-led party since June, and the TMC winning two other seats during the September bypolls, the ruling party’s tally increased to 215.
With Tuesday’s results, the TMC will revise its tally to 217 seats while the BJP will see its strength go down to 69.
With inputs from agencies