TMC’s Sangita Roy wins Sitai bypolls by a record margin of over 1L votes
Cooch Behar: Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) winning streak continued in Cooch Behar with its candidate Sangita Roy winning the Sitai Assembly bypolls with a record margin of 1,30,636 votes out of the 6 constituencies in Bengal where by-elections were held.
She defeated her closest rival BJP candidate Dipak Kumar Roy.
While Sangita Roy bagged 165984 votes; Dipak Kumar Roy got 35348 votes, Left Front-supported Forward Bloc candidate Arun Kumar Verma got 3319 votes and Congress candidate Harihar Singh Roy got 9117 votes.
The total number of voters in this Assembly is 322342. The total number of votes cast was 216849, about 71.30 per cent
The TMC candidate attributed her victory to the state government’s development projects, specially for women, children and students, under the able leadership of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. “This victory is the victory of all the common people of my Assembly Constituency as well as the workers who have toiled day and night to ensure my victory.
I am grateful to my mothers and sisters (female voters) for their votes. However, the most important factor for our win is the development work along with the welfare schemes like Lakkhir Bhandar that triumphed over false narratives spun and politicising of the heinous incident of RG Kar,” stated Sangita. Sitai has been a TMC stronghold since 2016.
In 2021 Assembly elections, TMC’s Jagdish Chandra Basunia won by 10112 votes from here. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections for the Cooch Behar Constituency, Jagadish Chandra Basunia was fielded as the TMC candidate. He defeated Union minister Nisith Pramanik of the BJP by a margin of over 39,000 votes.
This victory marked a significant shift as the TMC regained the seat in a region where the BJP had made substantial gains in the previous elections. Minister Udayan Guha said: “This result was expected. Except for levelling allegations, the BJP has no agenda. They have done nothing for the masses and have distanced themselves from the public.” BJP candidate Deepak Kumar Rai abstained from commenting. Political Pundits attribute the BJP’s defeat to the lack of organisational prowess and infighting.
Except for BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh, hardly any heavyweights were seen campaigning for Deepak Roy. Even the BJP MLAs from the district largely remained inconspicuous from the campaigns. Factionalism is to blame for this, claim observers. It is alleged that Malati Rabha Roy, the Tufanganj MLA who has been one of the front-rung BJP leaders who had led the party to many victories in Cooch Behar had fallen away with Nisith Prmanik, who being close to the ‘Delhi’ leaders, calls the shots.
This has led to infighting and Malati being sidelined to an extent. The day’s defeat will, however, result in a big jolt to Pramanik’s political career, opine observers.
