TMC makes a clean sweep, bags all 8 wards

KOLKATA: Sheer organisational strength along with intense relations with people helped Trinamool Congress (TMC) to take lead in all eight wards in the Bhabanipur Assembly by-election.

Political experts opined that the success of Trinamool Congress in winning all the wards will give the party an impetus to fight the civic elections, which is likely to be held in December.

Mamata Banerjee, Trinamool Congress candidate, won the seat by a record margin of 58, 835 votes while Priyanka Tibrewal got 26, 428 votes. Srijib Biswas of CPI(M) got 4,226 votes and his deposit was forfeited. In 2011 by-election, Banerjee had won by 54,000 votes.

Eight wards of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), namely, wards 63, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77 and 82 constitute Bhabanipur Assembly. There are 2.06 lakh voters, of which 57.09 per cent voted in the by-election. Bengali-Hindu voters constitute 42 per cent while non-Bengali Hindu voters constitute 36 per cent. The minorities constitute 24 per cent.

The concentration of non-Bengali population is highest in wards 63, 70 and 74. In ward 70, BJP took a lead in both 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha election by 4,880 and 2,000 votes. In 2019 Lok Saha poll, the party took a lead by 537 votes.

At the workers' meeting, Mamata Banerjee had urged them not to take the by-election casually and ensure that people turn up to cast their votes. It has been a common belief that people in Bhabanipur do not turn up to cast vote in the by-election in great numbers and Banerjee got 44 per cent vote in 2011 by-poll.

Senior party leaders, including Subrata Mukherjee, Partha Chatterjee, Firhad Hakim, Mala Roy and Debashis Kumar, were assigned to oversee the door-to-door campaign. Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee, party's national general secretary, had campaigned in every area, urging people to cast their votes for Trinamool to carry on with the uninterrupted development works in Bengal.

In ward 70, TMC took a lead by 1,526 votes. In wards 63 and 74, the party was ahead of its BJP rival. Debashis Kumar was in-charge of poll campaign in ward 70.

Party workers visited every household and made the people aware of different pro-people schemes taken up by the state government. Swasthya Sathi card and Lakshmir Bhandar became the trump cards as women irrespective of economic standards had been benefited by the schemes.

Due to Covid protocols, street corner meetings were held in Bhabanipur and the party organisation had played a major role in organising them. Party workers were divided into small groups and they visited every household.