More than five months after leading her party Trinamool Congress to a landslide victory in the state assembly polls, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee roared back in style today.
She won the Bhabanipur assembly by-election in south Kolkata by a record margin of 58,389 votes against her nearest BJP rival.
The CPI(M) nominee Srijib Biswas, making his debut electoral politics, bagged 4,000 votes, reports our New Delhi correspondent quoting Election Commission sources.
Mamata’s margin of victory in Bhabanipur in the by-polls is the highest in the constituency from where she had won in 2011 and 2016 assembly polls.
Mamata maintained healthy lead over her rivals right from round one of vote-count and her margin of win kept increasing with every successive round.
Half way through the counting process, Mamata took an unassailable lead.
The Bhabanipur by-polls win for Mamata came more than five months after she was defeated in the state assembly election in Nandigram by BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari by a margin of 1,956 votes, a result she has challenged in the court.
Mamata needed to win the Bhabanipur by-polls in order to continue as chief minister.
Indian law requires a person to become a member of the legislature within six months after becoming a minister.
