Kolkata, Dec 4 (IANS) The Trinamool Congress Sunday retained its stronghold Kolkata South Lok Sabha seat, long-identified with party chief Mamata Banerjee, with its candidate Subrata Bakshi trouncing his nearest Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) opponent by a massive margin in the bypoll.
The Trianmool’s strength in the Lok Sabha has gone up to 19, making it the second largest constituent of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) central government. The DMK now has one seat less than the Trinamool.
State Trinamool Congress president Bakshi won the bypoll with a margin of over 2.30 lakh votes against CPI-M’s young face Ritabrata Banerjee in the vote count. Three other independent candidates in the fray lost their deposits.
The bypoll, held Nov 30, was necessitated by West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee’s resignation from the Lok Sabha after she won the assembly by-election from Bhawanipur two months back.
Mamata Banerjee has won half a dozen elections to the lower house of parliament in a row from the prestigious Kolkata South seat over the past 20 years. She triumphed as a Congress candidate in 1991 and 1996 and registered wins in 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2009 with the grass-flower symbol of the Trinamool Congress which she founded by breaking away from the Congress.
Bakshi, who holds the transport and public works department portfolios in Mamata Banerjee’s cabinet, has been Didi’s (elder sister, as Banerjee is affectionately called) loyal soldier since the formation of Trinamool in 1998. He paved the way for Banerjee’s maiden entry into the state legislature by quitting as lawmaker from Bhowanipur, and she returned the gesture by nominating him party candidate from her old Lok Sabha seat.
However, Bakshi’s victory margin has outshone that of Banerjee in the previous polls two years back. Then, Banerjee had humbled her nearest opponent Rabin Deb of the CPI-M by 219,571 votes.
But in the assembly polls held earlier this year, the combined lead of the Trinamool candidates who bagged all the seven seats falling under Kolkata South, was over 3.50 lakh.
Bakshi also led emphatically in each of the seven assembly segments, but his margin dropped following a substantially lower voter turnout. While 51.55 percent of the voters exercised their democratic rights Dec 4, the voting percentage was 66.82 in 2009 Lok Sabha and 71.6 in the April-May assembly elections.
The Election Commission, however, announced the results without counting 48 votes due to malfunctioning of an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).
‘Due to the malfunctioning of an EVM, counting of 48 votes is being held up,’ Dibendu Sarkar, joint chief electoral officer of West Bengal Election Commission, told IANS here.
