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BJP’s Bengal poll tally to go down to 75; two MPs who contested to resign
The BJP did exceptionally well in the north Bengal region, winning 30 of the 54 assembly seats. It suffered in south Bengal.
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) tally in the West Bengal assembly will go down to 75 from the existing 77 as two Lok Sabha members who contested the polls will resign to remain in the Parliament, HT has learnt.
The MPs are Nisith Pramanik from Cooch Behar Lok Sabha constituency in north Bengal’s Cooch Behar district and Jagannath Sarkar, the MP from Ranaghat in south Bengal’s Nadia district. While Pramanik contested the Dinhata seat in Cooch Behar, Sarkar was fielded from Shantipur in Nadia.
The BJP did exceptionally well in the north Bengal region, winning 30 of the 54 assembly seats. It suffered in south Bengal where 240 seats helped the TMC win the polls.
Although the BJP’s other newly-elected MLAs took oath alongside the 213 TMC legislators last week, Pramanik and Sarkar did not come to Kolkata. The BJP state leadership said some MLAs had to stay in their constituencies in the wake of post-poll violence but the absence of the two MPs triggered speculations that they might not resign from Parliament since holding on to two Lok Sabha seats in Bengal is more important for the BJP in view of the assembly poll results.
In 2019, the BJP bagged 18 of Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats and created a record.
The saffron camp had vowed to oust the TMC government by winning more than 200 seats. The final verdict, however, came as a setback although the party’s star candidate and former TMC minister Suvendu Adhikari defeated Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee in East Midnapore district’s Nandigram by 1,900 votes.
The assembly elections were held in 292 of the state’s 294 seats as two candidates at two seats in Murshidabad district died of Covid-19 during the unprecedented eight-phase polling. Polls in these constituencies will be held later. Once Pramanik and Sarkar resign as MLAs, fresh polls will have to be conducted in their constituencies as well. Mamata Banerjee, too, has to get elected to the assembly to remain a chief minister. The same rule applies to finance minister Amit Mitra who did not contest the polls. He virtually took oath on Monday.
“We have to follow the decisions of our party,” Pramaik said on Tuesday.
“Staying in Parliament is more important, feels the leadership,” added Sarkar.
In the assembly polls, BJP sprang a surprise by naming Union minister Babul Supriyo, three other sitting Lok Sabha members and Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta alongside several actors and former TMC leaders in its list of candidates. Two Lok Sabha MPs, Supriyo and Locket Chatterjee lost the polls. Dasgupta, who had to resign from the Rajya Sabha to contest, was defeated too.
While Supriyo is a two-time MP, Chatterjee, Pramanik and Sarkar went to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 2019.
Pramanik contested from Dinhata against the TMC’s Udayan Guha, who was a minister during the Left Front era and left his party, the Forward Bloc, to join the ruling party after 2011. After the polls, Guha was injured in an assault, allegedly carried out by BJP workers, in Dinhata town. His right arm got fractured.
“Given the wave it is riding right now, the TMC is likely to win all the seats where fresh polls will be held,” said Kolkata-based political science professor and poll analyst Udayan Bandopadhyay.
Meanwhile, in a tweet, TMC MP Derek O'Brien wrote, "BJP fielded 4 sitting LS MPs, incl a Union Min & 1 RS MP for #BengalPolls. 3 lost. 2 won. Now these 2 to quit as MLAs😜They were elected last week! World’s largest (sic) party have set a world record for electoral egg on face."
One Nation One Election! What say Narendra, Amit😛
