Sagardighi Bypoll: Congress Consolidates Lead Margin Further after 3RD Round

Kolkata, March 2 (IANS) After the third round of counting for the by-elections for Sagardighi Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district of West Bengal, the Left Front-supported Congress candidate Bayron Biswas has consolidated his lead margin further to 1,959 votes pitting Trinamool Congress candidate Debasish Bandopadhyay in the second position.

BJP's Dilip Saha is in the third position. In terms of percentage, the Congress candidate has secured 46 per cent of the votes counted till then, followed by Trinamool Congress at 38 per cent and BJP at 12 per cent.

According to election observers, till the third round, counting has been completed in those pockets under Sagardighi Assembly constituency which have a mixed population of majority and minority voters.

However, in the forthcoming rounds counting will be for those pockets where the minority voters will be the decisive factor. "The counting in the next few rounds will give an idea on whether Trinamool Congress is continuing with the overwhelming support of the minority voters as it did in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly polls, or the Congress and Left Front alliance had been able to make a substantial dent there," a city-based political observer said.

Although 12 more rounds of counting are yet to be completed, Congress candidate Bayron Biswas sounded confident of his victory after the third round. "In the first three rounds, I secured lead from those pockets which were core pockets of Trinamool Congress till 2021. As I said before, if the elections are held peacefully and the people are allowed to vote without fear, our victory is assured. We are now going towards that direction," he said.

The bypoll in Sagardighi was necessitated following the sudden demise of erstwhile Trinamool Congress MLA Subrata Saha on December 29 last year. He was a three-time TMC legislator from the Sagardighi Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district, securing consecutive victories in 2011, 2016 and 2021. In 2021, he got elected defeating BJP's Mafuja Khatun by a margin of 50,216 votes.