Explained: How BJP’s NRC, TMC’s contrition delivered Didi’s bypoll clean sweep in Bengal

Kaliaganj, which was won by the Trinamool on Thursday, is part of the Raiganj Lok Sabha seat, which the BJP’s Debasree Chaudhuri won in the summer’s elections. The Kaliaganj Vidhan Sabha seat was won by the Congress’s Pramatha Nath Roy in 2016 and 2011.

On Thursday, the Trinamool’s Tapan Deb Singha defeated the BJP’s Kamal Chandra Sarkar by a margin of 2,414 votes in Kaliaganj. In the Lok Sabha election, the BJP led in this segment by around 57,000 votes.

In Kharagpur Sadar, Pradip Sarkar of the Trinamool defeated Prem Chandra Jha of the BJP by 20,853 votes. In the Lok Sabha election, the BJP led in this segment by around 45,000 votes.

The Trinamool retained the Karimpur seat, with Bimalendu Sinha Roy defeating the BJP’s Jay Prakash Majumdar by 23,910 votes.

In the Assembly elections of 2016, Karimpur was won by the Trinamool’s Mahua Moitra, who is now the party’s Lok Sabha MP from Krishnanagar. Karimpur is part of the Murshidabad Lok Sabha constituency, which is represented by Abu Taher Khan of the Trinamool Congress.

West Bengal bye-election results 2019: How TMC won Kharagpur Sadar, Kaliaganj, Karimpur

A mix of the scare around a countrywide National Register of Citizens (NRC), a rejuvenated party, successful election strategising by Prashant Kishor, and party leaders going door to door conceding that excesses had indeed been committed by a section of the local leadership, helped the Trinamool.

The threat of an NRC, Trinamool leaders said, had worked against the BJP, especially in the villages. The massive NRC exercise in Assam triggered great anxiety, and ultimately excluded over 19 lakh people in the state. In several districts of Bengal, people have been standing in queues outside civic body and panchayat offices for hours to correct important documents and request land deeds to prove their citizenship.

BJP leaders have repeatedly called for an NRC to weed out illegal migrants in West Bengal. State party president Ghosh has claimed that an NRC would result in over 2 crore illegal Bangladeshis being thrown out of Bengal.

Read | Bengal bypolls: BJP loses political ground, NRC fear now grips party

The state of the economy and the lack of job opportunities for the youth too, have impacted the BJP.

Senior Trinamool leaders said the party’s “Didi Ke Bolo” (Tell Didi) mass outreach programme helped, as did the call, following the Lok Sabha polls, to grassroots leaders and workers to return the “cut money” — illegal commissions — they had taken from people in return for facilitating the benefits of government schemes.

The BJP office in Kolkata wore a deserted look on Thursday. (Express Photo: Partha Paul)

The TMC also chose its candidates well. Instead of going for prominent faces, the party made local leaders candidates, which also helped quell factional feuding.

Senior party leaders Suvendu Adhikari and Rajib Banerjee were given the task of running the campaign at the grassroots, while heavyweights including supmero Mamata Banerjee largely stayed away.

Both Adhikari and Banerjee were seen apologising to the people in various public rallies for the excesses committed by a section of of local party leaders during the panchayat elections.

The party also made sure that the bypolls were violence-free — barring one incident, there was no major political violence on the day of polling.

The decimation of the Left Front and Congress, which fought the bypolls in an alliance, seems to have worked in the TMC’s favour. Many believe that the bulk of the Left-Congress vote went to the Trinamool.

In the Kaliaganj and Kharagpur Sadar seats, the Congress candidates got 18,857 and 22,631 votes respectively; in Karimpur, the CPM candidate received 18,624 votes.

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