By-elections to 6 Assembly seats to be held soon

Kolkata: After securing a clean sweep in the by-elections of four Assembly seats held recently, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) is now eyeing a victory in another six Assembly seats — Naihati, Haroa, Midnapore, Taldangra, Sitai and Madarihat where bypolls will soon be announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The bypolls have been necessitated in these six Assembly seats as the elected MLAs in these seats contested the Lok Sabha elections and won from their respective constituencies they have contested for.

Trinamool Congress in the 2021 Assembly elections won 5 out of these 6 seats except Madarihat where BJP won. The ruling party in Bengal has set a target of winning all six seats. It is assumed that the ECI may announce bypolls in these seats soon.

BJP has not been able to win a single Assembly seat in Bengal in by-elections which have taken place after the 2021 Assembly elections.

The ruling party in Bengal had a clean sweep in the by-polls in Bagdah, Ranaghat Dakshin, Maniktala and Raiganj the results of which were out last Saturday. Apart from Maniktala all the other three seats belonged to BJP and therefore the result came as a big blow to the BJP.

BJP lost three of their sitting seats — Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin and Bagdah — to the TMC.

Prior to the victory in these four seats, Sayantika Banerjee and Rayat Hossain Sarkar of TMC won the bypolls from Baranagar and Bhagwangola.

Congress’s Byron Biswas won Sagardighi Assembly by-elections in 2023 but soon after becoming a legislator, Biswas switched to Trinamool.

In October 2021, Assembly by-poll took place in four seats — Dinhata (Cooch Behar district), Santipur (Nadia district), Khardaha (North 24-Parganas) and in Gosaba (South 24-Parganas). BJP failed to bag a single seat.