Kanthi By-Election Result 2017: Trinamool's Chandrima Bhattacharya won Kanthi seat.
Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress retained the Kanthi Dakshin
assembly seat in East Midnapur district today. The BJP, which is trying to expand its footprint in the state, finished a distant second. Trinamool candidate and former Health Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya beat BJP's Sourindramohan Jana by over 42,000 votes.
Ms Bhattacharya had lost from Dum Dum (North) in the 2016 assembly polls. This time, her margin is bigger than the 34,000 votes by which Dibyendu Adhikari won the seat in 2016, when the party won a thumping mandate for a second term in the state. The seat fell vacant last year when Mr Adhikari was elected to the Lok Sabha from Tamluk.
The Congress -- which had partnered the Left Front in 2016 -- also lost badly. Its nominee Nabakumar Chanda polled only around 1.3 per cent of the votes. But it was better than that of Communist Party of India candidate Uttam Pradhan. The candidate, who had finished second in the same seat in 2016, lost his security deposit this time.
The polling on April 9 came amid the political controversy over Ram Navami, when supporters of the BJP and its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, held rallies across the state allegedly carrying flags and swords.
Barring its poor show in Bengal and Karnataka, the
BJP had been the biggest winner in this assembly elections. The party wrested one seat in Delhi from the ruling Aam Aadmi Party and one in Rajasthan from Mayawati's BSP. In Shivraj Singh Chouhan's Madhya Pradesh, it has won one, and is on way to win another. It has also won one seat each in Assam and Himachal Pradesh.