Oracle Mukul pricks TMC win......- and picks 'real' gainer |
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 "Our party's vote share has remained the same. The CPM has lost its relevance. In 2011, the BJP had 3-3.5 per cent votes and in 2014 it rose to 15-17 per cent. Now it is 28-29 per cent. This indicates the future ( bhobishyot er ingitbahi)," Mukul told ABP Ananda a few hours after the results were declared. Mukul plunged the statistical stiletto into his party and played soothsayer at a time he is locked in a riveting game of political chess with Mamata Banerjee. True to his style, Mukul has merely drawn attention to figure-based conclusions, hitting the party where it hurts but taking care not to incriminate himself. (See Page 8) Mukul, a Trinamul all-India general secretary, effectively underscored that the BJP has edged past the CPM to emerge as the main Opposition party in Bengal even as Mamata's electoral juggernaut continued to roll on. Mamatabala Thakur, the other Mamata and Trinamul nominee for the Bongaon Lok Sabha seat, made it by a margin of 2,11,785 votes. The BJP's Subrata Thakur, who happens to be her nephew, came third. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Trinamul had defeated the CPM by 1.46 lakh votes. In the Krishnaganj Assembly bypoll, Trinamul nominee Satyajit Biswas won by 37,033 votes and BJP candidate Manabendra Roy came second.  Mamata Banerjee outside the Royal Calcutta Turf Club on Monday. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya The chief minister called it a "miracle result", betraying a sense of relief as the elections were held at a time when the Saradha shadow over Trinamul has darkened, with the arrest of senior minister Madan Mitra and the prospect of more heads rolling. "I congratulate the people, I salute them. This is a miracle result. This is people's magic in Bengal," she said at the Royal Calcutta Turf Club helipad before her departure for Purulia this afternoon. Today's bypoll results reaffirmed that the battle lines were drawn between Trinamul and the BJP while the CPM continued to bleed. In the rest of the country, the BJP, still smarting from the Delhi drubbing by the Aam Aadmi Party, won two of the five Assembly seats where bypolls were held. In Bengal, the good news for Narendra Modi and Amit Shah is that the party's vote share graph, which took an upward swing in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, has continued to move northwards. The BJP bagged the second position in Krishnaganj while its nominee for the Bongaon seat came a close third. "The results clearly indicate that our graph is rising in Bengal," said Sidharth Nath Singh, the BJP's Bengal minder. Bengal BJP president Rahul Sinha said Left supporters were gradually switching to the BJP to fight Trinamul. "Left supporters are backing us. This trend will continue in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation and 2016 Assembly polls," said Sinha. A comparison of the figures revealed the shift in votes from the Left camp to the BJP while the Trinamul vote share remained almost intact. With the elections for the Calcutta Municipal Corporation and other civic bodies due in April, the BJP can expect to make more gains at the cost of the Left as it gears up to challenge Trinamul in the 2016 Assembly polls. "But for a major victory, we have to wean away votes from Trinamul and that's the biggest challenge," said a BJP leader. In districts like Birbhum, where Trinamul held sway till a few months ago, the process has started with the BJP making its presence felt even in minority-dominated areas. Several BJP leaders said the most important leg of the contest with Trinamul would start now as the party had established itself as the main Opposition party. "If we are looking at the 2016 Assembly elections, the next few months are make-or-break for us," said a BJP leader. BJP president Shah has decided to tour Bengal extensively till the Assembly polls and bring in an army of national leaders to prepare the state unit to take on Trinamul. What remains to be seen is whether that will be enough to unseat the Mamata regime, which again proved today that the minority community was by its side. Both Krishnaganj and Bongaon have a significant minority population. The twin victories could not have come at a better time for Mamata, who is going through one of the most critical phases of her three-decade-plus political career. Not only has the Saradha scam cast a shadow over her party, her personal probity has also come under the scanner in recent months. Mamata and her colleagues were quick to term the victory a verdict against the Opposition and a section of the media's "smear campaign" against her and Trinamul. In Purulia's Ladhurka, where Mamata attended a government event, she made it clear that the advantage of a split in the Opposition votes would go to her. "Today's results in the by-elections have shown that the people are with us and have respected and recognised us. We will continue well for another 10 years, we will not fear anything," she said in an uncharacteristically mellow voice. "The margin of victory in both seats is more than the last time. It is a message to our opponents and a section of the media: don't lie, don't misguide the people," she added. |
Published: February 17, 2015 01:37 IST | Updated: February 17, 2015 07:58 IST
BJP edges out CPI(M) as main rival to Trinamool
The party comes second in the Krishnaganj Assembly by-election
Since the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP appears to have established itself as the principal opposition party in West Bengal, data from elections in the State show.
In the May 2014 general elections, the BJP’s vote share in the State jumped to a record 17.02 per cent, taking it from the fourth place in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections to the third place, behind the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the All India Trinamool Congress. This was in a State in which the party had only one MLA 15 years ago, and that victory too came in a by-election in which it was in an alliance with the Trinamool. There have been four by-elections in the State since the Lok Sabha elections, and the party has firmly established itself as the principal opposition party, the results show.
In September, it won the Basirhat Dakshin Assembly seat in a by-election, a seat which was until then held by the CPI(M) and in which it polled fewer than 4 per cent of the votes in 2011. From 2011 to 2014, its votes multiplied 10 times. In the Chowringhee Assembly seat, it came second, its vote share growing by over 20 percentage points.
On Monday, the BJP again came second to the Trinamool in the Krishnaganj Assembly seat in the by-election, its vote tally growing 10 times of what it was in 2011, while the CPI(M)’s tally nearly halved and even the victorious Trinamool’s vote count decreased slightly. In the Bongaon Lok Sabha seat, its vote share increased, but it was 10,000 votes behind the runner-up CPI(M). “The BJP has established itself as the only alternative in West Bengal,” Siddharth Nath Singh, the party’s State in-charge, said. “By-elections don’t change an Assembly’s composition, but they do indicate a trend. The trend is that from the last State elections, to the Lok Sabha to the by-elections, the BJP’s vote share is the only one continuously rising,” Mr. Singh told The Hindu. Trinamool leaders, played down the result, saying not it but the CPI(M) need to worry about the BJP.