Trinamool Congress candidate Dulal Chandra Das emerged victorious on Maheshtala Assembly seat on Thursday. Das trounced his nearest rival Bharatiya Janata Party's Sujit Kumar Ghosh by 62,896 votes. While Das bagged 1,04,818 votes, Ghosh received the support of 41,992 voters.
Left Front-spearhead Communist Party of India-Marxist aspirant Pravat Chowdhury, backed by the Congress, managed to obtain 30,316 votes in the triangular contest.
In the 2016 Assembly polls, CPI-M's heavyweight candidate Shamik Lahiri had gone down by 12,452 votes to Trinamool's Kasturi Das in the constituency.
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The bypoll in South 24 Parganas district's Maheshtala constituency was necessitated after the death of the two-time representative Kasturi Das of TMC in February this year. The seat had been a CPI(M) stronghold till 2011 when it lost to the Trinamool Congress, which grabbed power in the state. In 2016, TMC leader Kasturi Das returned to defeat the party again by 12,452 votes.
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TMC had roped in Dulal Das, husband of Kasturi Das for the by-poll. The BJP pitched in Sujit Kumar Ghosh. Congress has extended its support for the CPI(M) candidate.
During the polling, held on May 28, the TMC candidate alleged that the BJP party workers were trying to brew trouble during the voting. “BJP had distributed money last night in different areas and our boys nabbed some of them red-handed. They are also bringing in cadres from other areas to foment trouble,” Das said.
