New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee won the Bhawanipore by-poll on Wednesday by 54,213 votes. She won by a huge margin in the south Kolkata constituency. The Trinamool Congress also snatched the Basirhat seat from the Left Front.
This was her first attempt at winning an Assembly seat, and was a six cornered contest.
Mamata needed to win the seat in order to remain Chief Minister.
"Mamata Banerjee has won from Bhawanipore assembly constituency. The victory margin is 54,213 votes," said a senior election official.
The Trinamool Congress chief's nearest rival was Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) candidate Nandini Mukherjee, a computer science professor.
Public works department minister Subrata Bakshi had quit the seat to make way for Banerjee seeking her maiden entry to the state assembly.
In another assembly by-election held on Sunday, Trinamool's ATM Abdulla defeated CPI-M's Subid Ali Gazi in Basirhat constituency of North 24 Parganas district.
The constituency went to the by-poll after CPI-M legislator Mostafa Bin Quasem allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the balcony of his room in the 'MLAs' Hostel'.
"Trinamool Congress has won the Basirhat assembly constituency. The victory margin is 30,900-plus votes. The exact figures will come in the evening. A total of 18 rounds of counting were held," said Dibyendu Sarkar, joint chief electoral officer in the West Bengal election commission.
Voting for both the constituencies was held on September 25. While 49.32 per cent of eligible voters exercised their franchise in Bhowanipore, 80 per cent polling was recorded in Basirhat.
The Bhawanipore area, which houses Banerjee's spartan residence in a dingy lane of Kalighat, is considered her pocket borough.
Bakshi had won by a margin of 49,963 votes over CPI-M candidate Narayan Jain in the assembly polls earlier this year.
With additional information from IANS
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