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The Trinamool Congress is eyeing a clean sweep in the Asansol Lok Sabha constituency and the Ballygunge assembly segment by-polls, as its candidates marched ahead of rivals after several rounds of counting, the Election Commission said.
In Asansol, former Union minister and veteran actor Shatrughan Sinha is leading by an unsurmountable margin of 2,03,294 votes over BJP’s Agnimitra Paul.
Sinha bagged 4,65,577 votes, whereas Paul secured 2,62,283 votes, as per data available with the EC.
TMC candidate Babul Supriyo is ahead of CPI(M)’s Saira Shah Halim by 8,187 votes in Ballygunge, after 12 rounds of counting.
The by-polls, which took place on April 12, were necessitated as Supriyo resigned as the MP of Asansol after switching over to the TMC from the BJP, while state minister Subrata Mukherjee, who represented Ballygunge, died last year.
West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee thanked the voters of Asansol and Ballygunge for handing a decisive mandate to the ruling party nominees.
“We consider this to be our people’s warm Shubho Nababarsho’ gift to our Ma-Mati- Manush’ organisation. Salute to the voters for reposing faith in us, yet again,” she added.
Reacting to the poll trends, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar said in general the party in power in a state emerges victorious in by-elections.
“But, I can assure you that we will win back Asansol in 2024. We would defeat TMC’s reign of terror in the next Lok Sabha polls,” he said.
