BJP wins 3 seats in Bengal, its highest tally since BJS's 9 in 1952

Kolkata, May 19: The BJP put up a decent performance in the West Bengal Assembly election this year by winning three seats. This is its highest tally of seats in the state since 1952 when its predecessor, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, won nine seats. The seats are Madarihat in Alipurduar district, Baishnabnagar in Malda and Kharagpur Sadar in West Midnapore.

Among the winners were Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh. Ghosh, a former RSS man who was appointed towards the end of last year, defeated veteran sitting MLA Gyansingh Sohanpal of the Congress. He won from Kharagpur Sadar constituency.

In terms of vote-shares also, the BJP was doing good with over 10 per cent at the time of writing this report, less than two points behind the Congress---the third place-holder. [What Mamata said after the emphatic victory]

The vote-share, though is less than the 17 per cent it bagged in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, but more than double than that it had grabbed in the 2011 Assembly election (4.1%). In the 2006 Assembly election, the BJP contested the election in alliance with the TMC but could not win any seat of its own and ended with a paltry vote-share of 1.9 per cent.

BJP won 1 seat in 2014 by-election

The BJP has one seat in the outgoing Assembly. It got the seat in 2014 when Samik Bhattacharjee won from Basirhat South constituency in a bypoll.

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