Bypolls: BJP lost deposit in 3 out of 4 Assembly seats

Kolkata: BJP candidates have lost their deposits in three out of four Assembly seats where by-election was held, clearly indicating that the future of the party is sealed in Bengal in immediate future.

In Dinhata where BJP candidate, Nisith Pramanik had won in 2021 Assembly election by a slender margin of 57 votes, the party nominee Ashok Mondol got only 25, 486 votes. Here TMC candidate Udyan Guha won by more than 1.64 lakh votes, till reports last came in, and scripted history.

In Khardah, Joy Saha of BJP got only 20, 254 votes where Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay of Trinamool Congress won by over 93,000 votes.

In Gosaba BJP got only 18,423 votes against Sunil Mondol of TMC who got 1.43 lakh votes. Till reports last came in.

Taking a dig at BJP for keeping faith in people who had come from Trinamool Congress, Tathagata Roy, former state president of the party said this was inevitable for the party. Roy had been criticizing the state unit since the party's poll debacle in the Assembly election whose result was announced in May.

Party's central leadership including Narendra Modi and Amit Shah had said the party would get more than 200 seats in the Assembly election.

However, finally the party managed to get only 77 seats and so far five MLAs from the saffron along with a former MP has joined the Trinamool.

Roy said the old-timers had been sidelined and abused by the new comers who told them that they had brought 18 MPs in 2019. He said these leaders will have to take responsibility now. The Left Front candidates have also lost their deposits in Dinhata, Gosaba and Khardah.

However, both the BJP and CPI(M) candidates were able to save their deposit in Shantipur.

In Dinhata which was a strong Forward Bloc base at one time, the candidate got only 6,290 votes. In Khardah CPI(M) candidate got 16,110 votes while in Gosaba the RSP candidate got 3,078 votes. The Congress candidate in Santipur got only 2,778 votes.