Mamata Banerjee on Sunday won a spectacular victory in Bengal, defeating the BJP in elections in the middle of a raging pandemic. The Chief Minister, however, lost to BJP's Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram. "I accept the verdict in Nandigram - it is not a big deal. Don't worry," she said.
The Election Commission has rejected the Trinamool Congress's appeal for a recount of votes at Nandigram, where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had faced her aide-turned-arch rival Suvendu Adhikari. The Returning Officer has said that the result will be officially declared after the VVPAT slips are tallied with the votes on the Electronic Voting Machines. After a day of yo-yo competition. the results on Sunday evening indicated that the Chief Minister had lost to Mr Adhikari by 1,736 votes in the contest that was the centrepiece of the assembly election in the state.
The BJP party office in Arambag was set ablaze on Sunday evening as the Trinamool Congress inched towards a huge victory in the assembly elections, reopening allegations of violence by the ruling party. The BJP leaders and workers tweeted the video, alleging that Trinamool has unleashed violence on their workers elsewhere as well.