West Bengal , Oct 3: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a landslide victory won from home turf Bhabanipur by over 58,000 votes, on Sunday. Three Assembly constituencies, including Bhabanipur, went to polls in West Bengal on September 30.
At the end of 17 rounds of counting, Ms. Banerjee was leading by a margin of 45,738 votes over her nearest rival Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate Priyanka Tibrewal. The West Bengal Chief Minister had secured above 78.2 % of all votes polled in the constituency at the end of 12 rounds.
The TMC is also leading in Murshidabad’s Samserganj and Jangipur where votes were counted for assembly elections.
Ms. Banerjee had represented Bhabanipur seat in 2011 and 2016. She had contested the West Bengal Assembly polls earlier this year from Nandigram and lost to BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari by a margin of 1956 votes.
By end of nine rounds of counting, Ms. Banerjee lead had already surpassed the Trinamool Congress candidate Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay who had defeated BJP Rudranil Ghosh five months ago by a margin of 28,790 votes. Votes will be counted for 21 rounds at Bhabanipur.
Mr. Chattopadhyay had resigned as an MLA paving the way for Ms. Banerjee to contest from the seat she had represented for the past 10 years. The campaign for Bhabanipur was a high-pitched one with the leaderships of both the TMC and the BJP trying to reach out to voters of the constituency in south Kolkata.
With the Trinamool Congress chairperson maintaining a huge lead, party supporters had already started celebrations in Kolkata. Scores of TMC supporters had gathered outside Ms. Banerjee’s Harish Chatterjee street residence and started celebrations.
Counting of votes is also going on at two more constituencies of Jangipur and Samserganj in Murshidabad district that went to polls on September 30.
In Samserganj, TMC candidate Amirul Islam was leading by 3,768 votes after the fifth round of counting. He secured 19,751 votes, while his nearest rival, Zaidur Rahaman of the Congress, received 15,983 votes.
Jangipur’s TMC candidate Jakir Hossain was leading by 15,643 votes after the second round of counting. Mr. Hossain secured 25,572 votes, and his nearest rival, BJP’s Sujit Das, got 9,929 votes.
Voting in the seats was held on September 30.
As the reports of Ms. Banerjee’s massive lead came in, TMC supporters hit streets across the state to celebrate with green “abir”.
On the other side, the BJP and the CPI(M)’s state offices wore a deserted look.
Ms. Tibrewal on Saturday night wrote to the Acting Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court Rajesh Bindal, urging him to give orders to the police to take preventive steps to avoid incidents of violence after the results are declared. (Agencies)
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