Bengal by-poll: Trinamool wins big in Maheshtala
Kolkata, May 31: West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress on Thursday retained the Maheshtala Assembly seat with an impressive margin, while the BJP took the second spot by displacing the CPI-M.
Trinamool candidate Dulal Das trounced his nearest rival Bharatiya Janata Party's Sujit Kumar Ghosh by 62,896 votes.
While Das bagged 1,04,818 votes, Ghosh received the support of 41,992 voters.
Left Front-spearhead Communist Party of India-Marxist aspirant Pravat Chowdhury, backed by the Congress, managed to obtain 30,316 votes in the triangular contest.
In the 2016 Assembly polls, CPI-M's heavyweight candidate Shamik Lahiri had gone down by 12,452 votes to Trinamool's Kasturi Das in the constituency.
The CPI-M-led Left Front had entered into an alliance with the Congress then, and the BJP received only seven percent of the valid votes.
Kasturi Das's demise caused the by-election.
Dulal, Kasturi's husband and chairman of the Maheshtala municipality, led from the outset, and went on consolidating his position after every round.
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Karnataka HM G Parameshwara blames EVM for Cong debacle in Maharashtra, backs ballot papers
BENGALURU: Karnataka home minister G Parameshwara on Monday alleged Electronic Voting Machine manipulations led to the defeat of Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance in just concluded assembly polls in Maharashtra.
While speaking to reporters here on Monday, he said the BJP does selective manipulations to convince people that there were no wrongdoings. He also wanted to go back to the paper ballots system.
The ruling BJP-led Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra won a landslide victory in the assembly elections, shattering the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi's dream to wrest power. The BJP won the highest ever 132 seats for the party, while the Shiv Sena led by Shinde bagged 57 seats and NCP won 41 seats to take the Mahayuti total to 230 seats. Congress as part of MVA won just 16 seats.
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"We analysed the Maharashtra poll outcome deeply. We felt that in many places EVMs were manipulated," Parameshwara said. He also said an obvious question would be why not it happened in Jharkhand and elsewhere. The manipulations are done selectively so that no one can question it, he blamed.
According to him, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha is a leading partner. Had the Congress been the leading partner, things would have changed. He backed the ballot papers saying that the same was discussed in Maharashtra Congress as well.
