TMC retains all three seats in WB by-poll

TMC candidate Dibyendu Adhikari won Tamluk Lok Sabha seat by defeating his nearest CPI(M) rival Mandira Panda by 4.97 lakh votes, up from 2.5 lakh votes in 2014.

Kolkata, Nov 22: Trinamool Congress today retained the two Lok Sabha seats and one assembly seat in West Bengal where by-poll was held on November 19 with its candidates winning by massive margin.

TMC candidate Dibyendu Adhikari won Tamluk Lok Sabha seat by defeating his nearest CPI(M) rival Mandira Panda by 4.97 lakh votes, up from 2.5 lakh votes in 2014.

The party won the Coochbehar LS seat with its candidate Parthapratim Roy drubbing his nearest rival BJP's Hemchandra Burman by a margin of 4.9 lakh votes and pushed Forward Bloc, a LF partner to the third position. Roy increased the party's victory margin from 38,000 in 2014 to 4.9 lakh.

In Monteswar assembly seat, Saikat Panja of TMC won the seat by a margin of 1.27 lakh votes over his nearest CPI(M) rival Md Osman Gani Sarkar.

The CPI(M), Congress and BJP lost their deposits in the polls. TMC'S winning margin in the May 2016 assembly polls was a mere 786 votes when Congress and CPI(M) fought unitedly.

The bypoll to Cooch Behar LS and Monteswar assembly seats was necessitated following the deaths of TMC MP Renuka Sinha and MLA Sajal Panja respectively. Bypoll to Tamluk LS seat was necessitated after TMC MP Suvendu Adhikari, elder brother of Dibyendu, won the West Bengal Assembly election from Nandigram and became a state minister.

West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee termed the assembly poll results as a mandate against the Centre's decision of demonetisation. "The by-election result is a befitting reply against the anti-people demonetisation by the Centre.

It's a people's revolt, rather than a mass revolt against the Centre. BJP should take lessons from this mandate," she told reporters before leaving for New Delhi to join the protest rally by the Opposition.

PTI