Big blow to BJP: Trinamool wins all three Bengal bypoll seats — Karimpur, Kharagpur & Kaliagunj

The Trinamool Congress today won all three seats in the Assembly byelections of West Bengal that were held earlier this week. The win is extremely significant for the politics of the state in the coming days. It has dealt a major blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that had won 18 seats in Lok Sabha elections just a few months back.

The winning margins are 2,418 votes in Kaliyagunj, 20,811 votes in Kharagpur Sadar and 24,119 votes in Karimpur.

Trinamool Congress not only got the Karimpur constituency that had been won by Mohua Moitra in the last Assembly elections, but also from Kharagpur and Kaliagunj. In the last Assembly elections, Kharagpur in West Midnapore district was won by the BJP’s Dilip Ghosh and Kaliagunj in Uttar Dinajpur had been won by the Congress. Dilip Ghosh and Mohua Moitra have both contested Parliament elections subsequently, in 2019, and thus byelections were held for both the seats to choose new lawmakers. For Kaliagunj, the Congress lawmaker died a few months back.

Losing the Kharagpur seat has been the most shocking for the BJP as it had been won by the party’s chief in the state, Dilip Ghosh. If the performance of the last Lok Sabha polls is taken into consideration, Karimpur had a lead for the Trinamool Congress while Kaliagunj and Kharagpur both had leads for the BJP.

Party insiders say that BJP’s loss has been mostly due to the NRC — which the Centre has repeatedly mentioned about implementing. The scare and uncertainty this had created in the minds of people — especially in north Bengal, where the BJP has a strong base — has led to the reducing support for the party.