People's Democracy

B Prasant

THE West Bengal Left Front registered an emphatic victory in the assembly bypoll held for the Onda constituency in Bankura. The Left Front’s Tarapada Chakravarty (Forward Bloc) won by a striking margin of 63,267 votes over his Pradesh Congress and Trinamul Congress rivals. Both his rivals had their deposits forfeited.

The Onda seat fell vacant when Anil Mukherjee, Forward Bloc MLA and deputy speaker of the assembly, passed away a few months back.

State CPI(M) secretary Anil Biswas and Left Front chairman Biman Basu have felicitated the Onda electorate for ensuring a thumping victory for the Left Front candidate. Biswas said the win "has once more proved how the mass base of the Left Front has gone on increasing and how the opposition in Bengal has been fast losing ground over the months, of late in particular."

The Bengal Left Front always won the Onda assembly polls right from 1977. However, the margin of win went on increasing except once and this time around it has been the biggest so far, as the Table here shows.

A frustrated Trinamul Congress and flabbergasted Trinamul supremo, for once, did not sing the refrain of "rigged polls" when the results were declared. Indeed, she was quite loathe to address the media herself. She preferred to send one of her minions who chose to a pull a long and sad visage while announcing that as far as he knew, the Onda bypoll might well be "of little importance to the Trinamul Congress." The Pradesh Congress leadership preferred to remain silent on the poll outcome.