KOLKATA: In contrary to the common perception that people in Bhabanipur do not cast their votes in large numbers during by-election, the polling percentage for the bypoll held on Thursday went up to 53.22 per cent, up by about 10 per cent from the 2011 bypoll.
The polling percentage in the 2011 by-election was 44.73 per cent and Trinamool Congress chairperson had won by over 54,000 votes.
On Thursday, with the poll percentage going up to 53.22 per cent, political experts said it was expected that Mamata Banerjee's winning margin would go up substantially with BJP and CPI(M) failing to have any impact on the by-election.
Bhabanipur, once a Congress stronghold, shifted its loyalty towards Mamata Banerjee after she formed TMC in 1998. She was elected twice from the seat in 2011 and 2016. She had to contest the by-election in Bhabanipur, following an alleged conspiracy hatched by the BJP in Nandigram where she lost to BJP candidate by a narrow margin. She had filed a case challenging the result in Calcutta High Court. The by-election showed that the people of Bhabanipur had rejected BJP.
In the 2021 Assembly election, union Home minister Amit Shah had participated in a rally and star campaigners had worked for the party's nominee, Rudranil Ghosh.
Despite that, he was defeated by over 28,000 votes.
Two Union ministers, Smriti Irani and Hardeep Singh Puri, had campaigned for Priyanka Tibrewal, the party's nominee in Bhabanipur while Arjun Singh, BJP MP from Barrackpore, was made the in-charge of the election. BJP could not give polling agents in many booths.
There is massive erosion in the vote bank of CPI(M). Experts opined that it was certain that Srijib Biswas, CPI(M) candidate's deposit may get forfeited.
From 1952 to 1977 when Bhabanipur Assembly seat became a part of Chowringhee Assembly seat, CPI(M) had won the seat only once when its candidate Sadhan Gupta was elected in 1969. When the seat was again formed in 2011, Subrata Bakshi was elected. Subsequently Mamata Banerjee won the bypoll in2011 and later won the Assembly election in 2016.