‘Vote fraud, reign of terror’: BJP’s big charge at TMC on bypoll results

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday accused the ruling Trinamool Congress of electoral fraud after the ruling party in West Bengal won all four assembly seats that went to bypolls on July 10.

“The way the results have come, BJP has got three votes in some booths, and four votes in some booths, this is fraud in the name of votes…We have complained to the Election Commission earlier also but there was no hearing,” Union minister and West Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar told ANI.

West Bengal BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya too echoed the sentiments of the state party unit chief. “We will review our performance. But the TMC did not allow free and fair elections and there were a lot of irregularities. The ruling party had unleashed a reign of terror,” BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya was quoted by ANI as saying. 

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The Trinamool Congress swept the assembly bypolls, wresting three seats from the BJP- Raiganj, Bagda, and Ranaghat Dakshin. The Mamata Banerjee-led party won Maniktala constituency by a huge margin of over 62,000 votes. 

The BJP secured the second position in all four seats, while the Left-Congress alliance finished a distant third and lost deposits in two assembly segments.

The bypolls were a litmus test for the BJP, whose seat tally in the Lok Sabha elections dropped from 18 in 2019 to 12 this time. The saffron camp has 71 seats in the 294-member West Bengal assembly, down from 77 in the 2021 elections. 

The Trinamool Congress tally stands at 215 in the 294-member assembly. It also enjoys the support of three BJP MLAs, who switched over to the ruling party but are yet to resign from the House.

“The trend is very clear, even earlier mandate (of Lok Sabha elections) was not in favour of NDA,” West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was quoted by PTI as saying after the bypoll results.

(With PTI, ANI inputs)