Trinamool Congress wins Bengal bypoll

KOLKATA: The ruling Trinamool Congress on Thursday registered an impressive victory in the Maheshtala assembly bypoll in West Bengal defeating its nearest rival BJP by a margin of 62,765 votes.

TMC candidate Dulal Das secured 1,04,818 votes as against 42,053 votes bagged by BJP's Sujit Ghosh, a senior EC official said. Left Front's Prabhat Chowdhury was third with 30,384 votes. The victory follows the ruling party's win in the panchayat polls earlier this month.

“After complete counting of votes, the victory margin is 62765,” the EC official said, adding, in the 2016 assembly polls, the winning margin was 12,452. There was no Congress candidate in the bypoll as the party was in an electoral understanding with the Left Front for the first time since the 2016 assembly poll in the state.


The NOTA option found favour with 3742 voters of the seat, the EC official said.The May 28 bypoll was necessitated following the death of TMC MLA Kasturi Das. Dulas Das is her husband.