KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress candidates were ahead of their rivals in bypolls held in four assembly seats in West Bengal, where counting began on Saturday morning, according to the Election commission website. The bypolls for Maniktala, Bagda, Ranaghat Dakshin and Raiganj assembly seats were held on July 10.
TMC‘s nominee Supti Pandey was leading by 8,627 votes in Maniktala in Kolkata over her nearest rival Kalyan Chaubey of the BJP, while in Raiganj in Uttar Dinajpur district, Trinamool Congress candidate Krishna Kalyani was ahead of Manas Kumar Ghosh of the saffron camp by 21,393 votes.
TMC’s Madhuparna Thakur was leading by 12,444 votes over her rival Binay Kumar Biswas of the BJP in the Bagda assembly seat in North 24 Parganas district.
Mukut Mani Adhikari of the TMC was ahead of BJP nominee Manoj Kumar Biswas by 2,139 votes in Ranaghat Dakshin in North 24 Parganas.
The BJP secured Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda and Raiganj segments in the 2021 assembly polls.
The Maniktala seat was bagged by the TMC in 2021 but became vacant after former state minister Sadhan Pandey died in February 2022.
Despite the BJP winning the other three seats in 2021, the MLAs later switched to the TMC.
The bypolls were necessitated as Krishna Kalyani from Raiganj, Biswajit Das from Bagda and Mukut Mani Adhikari from Ranaghat Dakshin gave up their seats to contest the Lok Sabha elections.