Mamata visits temple, gurudwara after by-poll victory

Kolkata, Oct 4 (PTI) A day after winning the Bhabanipur by-poll by a record margin, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday visited a temple and a gurudwara in the constituency.

Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress supremo, went to the famous Sitala temple at Bhabanipur in south Kolkata and offered puja. She was accompanied by her nephew and the party's national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

She, Abhishek and other party leaders then went to a nearby gurudwara on foot, covering a distance of nearly a kilometre.

Wearing a scarf covering her head, the TMC boss offered her prayers and spoke to devotees and the priest there.

While campaigning for the by-poll last month, Banerjee had visited the temple and the gurudwara and a mosque in the constituency.

She won by-poll with a record margin of 58,835 votes, defeating her nearest rival Priyanka Tibrewal of the BJP. The TMC supremo needed to win it to continue as the chief minister.

Banerjee, a resident of Bhabanipur, had won the seat in 2011 and 2016. However, in the assembly election held earlier this year, she contested from Nandigram, where the anti-farmland acquisition movement against the Left Front government had transformed her into a major political force in the state, to dare her protege turned adversary Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP in his home turf.

Though she powered the TMC to a resounding win for a third straight term in office, she lost to Adhikari by a narrow margin, and challenged the result in the Calcutta High Court. The case is pending. PTI PNT NN NN