Trinamool Congress wins Asansol Lok Sabha seat for the first time and retains Ballygunge Assembly seat in the byelections in West Bengal

Continuing its winning streak in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress secured convincing victories in the byelections to the Asansol Lok Sabha seat and the Ballygunge Assembly constituency.

Shatrughan Sinha, TMC leader and Bollywood actor, after winning Asansol Lok Sabha seat, in Asansol on April 16.

Continuing its winning streak in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress secured convincing victories in the byelections to the Asansol Lok Sabha seat and the Ballygunge Assembly constituency. In Asansol, Shatrughan Sinha, the Trinamool candidate, secured a massive 56.62 per cent of the votes while Babul Supriyo won 49.69 per cent of the votes to retain the Ballugunge Assembly.

The victory in Asansol is particularly important for Trinamool as this is the first time that it has been able to win the Lok Sabha seat there. In the 2019 Parliamentary elections, Babul Supriyo had won it for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the second consecutive time, before he switched over to the Trinamool in September 2021. Interestingly, both Shatrughan Sinha and Babul Supriyo were once Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Ministers at the Centre. This time, Shatrughan Sinha, who joined the Trinamool only after the byelection dates were announced, defeated his nearest BJP rival Agnimitra Paul by a margin of over 3.03 lakh votes.

The BJP, whose political fortunes in the State has been on the decline ever since it emerged as the main Opposition in the 2021 Assembly election, not only lost Asansol, but came third the after the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in the Ballygunge Assembly byelection. The CPI(M)’s Saira Shah Halim came second with 30.06 per cent of the votes while the BJP’s Keya Ghosh came a distant third, securing just 12.83 per cent of the votes polled. In the 2021 Assembly election, it was the BJP that had come second after Trinamool.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called the victory a “Shubho Nababasho gift” (Happy Bengali New Year gift) from the people of Bengal. “I sincerely thank the electors of the Asansol Parliamentary Constituency and the Ballygunge Assembly Constituency for giving decisive mandate to AITC party candidates. We consider this to be our people’s warm Shubho Nababarsho gift to our Ma- Mati- Manush organisation. Salute to the voters for reposing faith in us, yet again,” she posted on social media.