BJP's Amit Malviya slams TMC, accuses party of intimidating voters to win bypolls

Amid the ongoing West Bengal by-poll vote counting, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT Cell head Amit Malviya on Tuesday alleged that the Trinamool Congress intimidated voters before the polls. Amit Malviya took to his official Twitter handle to reshare a tweet that showed Saugata Roy of the TMC reverberating the party’s good mood. Reacting to the party’s lead in the by-polls Roy claimed that the people were upset with the BJP government.

Reacting to Saugata Roy’s attack on the BJP, Amit Malviya said it was ‘amusing’ how TMC was gloating the lead. “Amusing to see TMC gloating at the lead in by-polls. The entire state machinery, including police and civil admin, was unleashed to intimidate voters. But this is a big admission that violence post 2 May was at the behest of the ruling TMC. Mamata Banerjee as HM presided over it,” Malviya said.

Saugata Roy says bypoll result not surprising

Saugata Roy while reacting to the party’s lead in the by-polls, said, “This (WB by-poll result) was expected, we fought well, we're winning comfortably. The more BJP goes back, the better it is for democracy. People are upset with their govt. Our party gave directions that there shouldn't be any post-poll violence. Nothing will happen.”

In the constituency of Dinhata, Udayan Guha won with a mammoth lead of 1.6 lakh votes. In Gosaba, TMC candidate Subrata Mondal won by seat by 1.4 lakh votes. In the Khardah constituency, Sovandeb Chatterjee is leading by 18,000 votes. In the Santipur constituency, which was under the BJP in May, the TMC lead by 18,000 votes after the sixth round.

Four constituencies of Dinhata, Khardaha, Gosaba (SC) and Santipur conducted by-poll elections on October 30 as they were a direct competition between the two major parties, BJP and the ruling party, TMC. The by-polls in Dinhata and Santipur were conducted because winning candidates from the BJP Nisith Pramanik and Jagannath Sarkar chose to remain in the Parliament despite winning the elections. On the other hand, TMC won the seats of Gosaba and Khardaha but Kajal Sinha, victorious from the Khardaha seat died due to COVID-19 even before the results of the elections were announced. Gosaba’s election-winning TMC Jayanta Naskar passed away earlier this year. Naskar had bagged the seat for the third time since 2011.

Image: PTI/ ANI