IN A big boost for the ruling Trinamool Congress months ahead of the state elections, the party retained the Kaliganj Assembly seat with a margin of 50,049 votes.
While TMC candidate Alifa Ahmed won with around 55% of the votes, the BJP’s Ashish Ghosh got half the votes, at 28%. The Congress’s Kabiluddin Sheikh was placed third, with about 15.21% of the votes.
The takeaways from the election:
Beset by several scams, and facing anger over the scrapped teachers’ recruitment exercise, the TMC heaved a sigh of relief at not just retaining the seat but also its votes. A senior TMC leader said: “There was no question that the party would win. Our challenge was to hold peaceful elections, and maintain our lead and vote share, which we have done.”
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee posted on X: “People of all religions, castes, races and walks of life have blessed us… The main architects of this victory are ma-mati-manush (mother, soil, and people).” She also paid tribute to Nasiruddin Ahmed, the late TMC MLA whose death led to the bypoll.
Ahmed’s daughter Alifa, a B.Tech graduate and employee of a prominent IT company, was fielded by the TMC for the bypoll. “I have got the blessings of every corner of Kaliganj,” the 38-year-old said after her victory.
The BJP, which continues its replacement of the Congress and Left as the main Opposition in Bengal, said it was happy with the results as their voting share had increased. A senior BJP leader said, “Generally, in a bypoll, the ruling party always has an advantage. Moreover, in Kaliganj, almost 48% of the voters are from the minority community. We were not expecting any exceptional results. We only wanted to see if we could consolidate the Hindu votes. In that, we have been successful to an extent.”
Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said, “The CPI(M) and Congress appear to have got some votes in minority areas, but our target was to consolidate the Hindu votes. Hence we concentrated on only 109 booths, where we got a large chunk of votes. We were successful in this strategy.”
Once upon a time, Kaliganj was a Congress stronghold, with its current ally Left also winning the seat multiple times. In 2016, the TMC was defeated by the Congress from here. However, in 2021, the TMC won big from Kaliganj, and has now continued that.
The small solace, if any, for the Congress-CPI(M) is that its vote share has seen a rise from 11.98% of the votes in 2021 to 15.21% in this bypoll.
With the Left extending support to the Congress in the Kaliganj bypoll, CPI(M) state secretary Md Selim said they are taking heart from their performance. “The TMC and Bengal ran an extremely communal campaign, but the people of Bengal realise that it will not solve their basic problems… We will gain more in the coming days.”
