Clean sweep for Trinamool Congress in West Bengal by-polls; Mamata congratulates winning candidates

Kolkata: The ruling Trinamool Congress on Tuesday made a clean sweep of all the four Assembly seats of Dinhata, Gosaba Khardah and Santipur in West Bengal, byelections to which were held on October 30.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee congratulated all the four winning candidates, saying the result showed Bengal will always choose development and unity over "propaganda and hate politics".

Taking to twitter, Ms Banerjee said, " My heartiest congratulations to all the four winning candidates! "

" This victory is people's victory, as it shows how Bengal will always choose development and unity over propaganda and hate politics, " she stated.

" With people's blessings, we promise to continue taking Bengal to greater heights! " the Trinamool Congress supremo iterated.

Trinamool Congress candidate Udayan Guha, who lost to BJP MP and Union Minister Nishith Pramanik by a slender margin in the last West Bengal Assembly election from Dinhata, romped home by a whopping margin of 1,64,088 votes from the same constituency in the just concluded byelection, defeating BJP candidate Ashok Mondal. It was a record victory margin for Guha from Dinhata in Cooch Behar district.

Brajakishore Goswami, Shobhandeb Chattopadhyay and Subrata Mandol also won by 60,892 votes, 93,832 votes and 1,43,000 votes from Santipur, Khardah and Gosaba Assembly constituencies respectively.

The ruling party wrested two seats of Dinhata and Santipur from the BJP.

Dinhata and Santipur seats fell vacant as BJP MPs Nishith Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar respectively resigned from the State Assembly and decided to retain their Lok Sabha memberships.

Shobhandeb Chattopadhyay, who romped home from Bhabanipur Assembly constituency in the last Assembly election, made room for Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who lost her Nandigram seat to BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari in the last Assembly election and returned to Assembly by a thumping margin from the prestigious Bhabanipur seat in the earlier byelection. (UNI)