People's Democracy

Bengal LF Wins By Big Margins

B Prasant

BENGAL Left Front has won the three assembly by-elections by impressive margins. The by-elections were held in Entally, Jorabagan, and Shyampukur in Kolkata.  It has also emerged victorious in the Siliguri municipal corporation polls, retaining the board quite comfortably.

Abu Sufiyan of the CPI(M) has won the Entally seat by a margin of 51,101 votes. Jorabagan saw a triumph for Parimal Biswas of the CPI(M) by a margin of 14,239 votes. In Shyampukur, Jiban Saha of the Forward Bloc won by a margin of 29,694 votes. The candidates put up by the Pradesh Congress and Trinamul Congress trailed far behind the leaders, losing their deposits in all but one instance.

In all three by-elections, the margin of victory of the Left Front was impressive. The percentage of margins is certainly greater than even those achieved during the 2004 Lok Sabha polls.  In the Entally seat, the CPI(M) candidate Md Salim in the assembly elections of 2001 got a win by just over 6,000 votes.  The winning margin of Abu Sufiyan is 51,101 votes.  During the Lok Sabha polls, Salim won by a margin of 34,000 votes from the Entally segment.

In Jorabagan, CPI(M)’s Sudhangsu Sil won by a margin of 2,400 votes in the 2001 assembly elections.  In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, Sil won by a margin of 900 from the Jorabagan segment.  Parimal Biswas won the by-elections with a margin of 14,239 votes.

In the 2001 assembly elections, Subrata Basu of the Forward Bloc won by a margin of over 4,000 votes.  In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, Sudhangsu Sil led by over 12,000 votes from this segment.  In the by-elections now, Jiban Saha won by a margin of 29,694 votes.

Of the 78,971 votes cast in the Entally seat, Abu Sufiyan (CPI-M) won 60,736.  Khaled Ibadullah of the Pradesh Congress got 9,635 votes, and Manzar Iqbal of the Trinamul Congress could gather just 6,883 votes.

In Jorabagan, the total number of valid votes was 40,065.  Parimal Biswas (CPI-M) got 23,418 votes. The Pradesh Congress and the Trinamul Congress candidates were left with 9,179 and 6.795 votes respectively.

Of the 52,056 votes cast in the Shyampukur seat, Jiban Saha of the Forward Bloc won 38,694 votes, the Trinamul Congress-BJP alliance candidate won 9,000 votes, and the Pradesh Congress nominee got just 3,490 votes.

Commenting on the win, state secretary of the CPI(M), Anil Biswas who felicitated the people for making the Left Front candidates emphatically victorious, said that the margins went up in the by-elections since the supporters of the Pradesh Congress and the Trinamul Congress would not turn up in any large numbers because of the political frustration affecting them.  Biswas said that the strength of the CPI(M) continued to increase because of campaign and mass contact.  The by-election victories increased the responsibility of the CPI(M) and the Left Front further, said Biswas.

Elsewhere, in north Bengal, the Left Front retained with some ease the Siliguri municipal corporation.  Of the 47 seats fought for, the Left Front won 36, with the CPI(M) alone winning 30 seats—an improvement over the past performances.  CPI, RSP, and the Forward Bloc have won two seats each. The Pradesh Congress has won four seats, the Trinamul Congress, five, the BJP, one, and the independents, one.  Bikash Ghosh of the CPI(M) continues as mayor, with Nurul Islam, also of the CPI(M), nominated as the deputy mayor. 

Anil Biswas has congratulated the people of the Darjeeling district for allowing the left Front to surge ahead in the polls and to retain the Siliguri municipal corporation. (INN)