West Bengal Assembly by-elections: TMC, Congress, Forward Block win one seat each

Kolkata: Congress, Trinamool Congress and Left Front shared honours in the crucial by-poll to three Assembly constituencies in West Bengal on Thursday. Congress took sweet revenge by defeating its former MLA Humayan Kabir, who is now a TMC minister in the state government, from Rejinagar seat in Murshidabad district.

The election results served a blow to the TMC which stood third in Nalhati in Birbhum district and Rejinagar in Murshidabad district, both of which the ruling party had expected to win.

Congress candidate Rabiul Alam Choudhury won from Rejinagar constituency against his nearest rival Left Front candidate Sirajul Islam Mandal by a margin of 11,722 seats. LF candidate Dipak Chatterjee won from Nalhati in Birbhum district over Congress' Abdur Rahman by a margin of 7,742 votes.

Trinamool Congress, Congress, BJP, CPI(M), RSP and Forward Bloc had fielded candidates in all the seats.

TMC's Biplab Ojha also stood third in the Nalhati Assembly by poll.

The saving grace for Trinamool Congress was, however, its win from English Bazar in Malda district when its minister Krishnendu Narayan Choudhury won by a margin of 20,452 votes over Kaushik Mishra of the Left front.

During the 2011 Assembly elections, Congress had won all the three seats when it had an alliance with the TMC. But after Congres and Trinamool parted ways over FDI in retail, both the parties decided to fight polls separately.

The Nalhati Assembly seat fell vacant after its MLA Abhijit Mukherjee, son of President Pranab Mukherjee, quit his seat to fight the Lok Sabha by-election from Jangipur. Elections to English Bazar and Rejinagar seats were necessitated by resignation of Congress MLAs Krishnendu Choudhury and Humayun Kabir following their switch-over to the TMC.

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