The Trinamool Congress retained the Kanthi Dakshin assembly seat Thursday, a largely unsurpising result in which the more significant takeaway was a surge by the BJP. The BJP, which had polled only 9 per cent of the vote in the assembly poll to this seat last year, more than trebled that vote share in the bypoll, reaching 31 per cent. With the Trinamool Congress roughly retaining its vote share — 54 per cent then, 56 now — the BJP’s gain came at the cost of the CPI, whose vote share dropped from 34 per cent to 10. The Trinamool candidate, former minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, bagged 95,369 votes to defeat the BJP’s Sourindra Mohan Jana by 42,526 votes. In the process, the BJP snatched the second position from the CPI, which had been in alliance with the Congress last year. Now, the BJP has made a case for itself as the “only alternative” to the Trinamool. “Today’s result has given the BJP official recognition as the main Opposition party in West Bengal,” state BJP president Dilip Ghosh told The Indian Express. “Next year’s panchayat election will be an acid test for the Trinamool Congress.” The question remains, however, whether the Kanthi Dakshin result can be the blueprint for the rest of the state. The panchayat polls will be the first challenge, particularly in areas such as Madarihat and Dinajpur in north Bengal and Basirhat in south Bengal. The BJP has done well in those areas earlier, with the Left and the Congress struggling. The Trinamool Congress, which has dismissed the BJP’s claims, cites the marginal increase of its own vote share. “It was expected as people’s support to the Trinamool Congress and Mamata Banerjee has increased over the years,” said Chandrima Bhattacharya, whose victory margin was 8,636 votes wider than Dibyendu Adhikari’s margin of 33,890 in 2016. Dibyendu, now an MP, is part of a family that has made Kanthi Dakshin one of the party’s strongest bases. Dibyendu’s father Sisir Adhikari (an MP) and brother Suvendu Adhikari (transport minister) have dominated politics in the area for 10 years since police firing on protesters in Nandigram, 55 km from Kanthi South, turned public sentiment away from the Left Front. Sisir Adhikari was formerly with the Congress. “The Congress still has some support in the area, but the Left continues to be unpopular. The unfortunate reality is that the Left’s weakness has offered the BJP an opportunity to grow,” said a TMC leader. Before the Adhikaris, former CPM heavyweight Laxman Seth used to be the strongman here. Expelled by his party in 2014, Seth joined the BJP last year. “The BJP campaign didn’t utilise Seth directly. But the fact that he retains support in some pockets was definitely a factor,” said a BJP leader. Another important factor that helped the BJP was the network of the RSS and the Hindu Samhati. The RSS runs about 50,000 schools in West Bengal, of which a bulk are in the twin districts of Midnapore, which include Kanthi.
