In landslide TMC win, BJP’s N Bengal candidate leads list of photo-finishes

Kolkata: In an election, which saw a landslide victory for the Trinamool Congress on Sunday, 11 candidates from both the TMC and BJP clinched victory after a nail-biting finish.
Nisith Pramanik — the MP from Cooch Behar, who contested from the Dinhata constituency — won by 57 votes against Udayan Guha of the TMC.
After the photo finish, Pramanik said that in politics, emerging victorious is all that matters.
“It is a contest where we fought the game well. Particularly in the border areas where the booths were set up, several of the voters were restricted from exercising their franchise by the opposition. This has resulted in decreasing my winning margin,” Pramanik said.
Pramanik added that had the voters been able to vote, the margin could have been “30000 to 40000 votes.”
First-time MLA Baneswar Mahato of BJP — who had beaten Bengal cabinet minister Shantiram Mahato at Balarampur in Purulia by a wafer-thin margin of only 423 votes — said he was still happy with the verdict. “A win is a win. Balarampur is the place from where BJP’s rise in Bengal had started and I am glad I could beat a Bengal minister contesting for the first time from this seat. I will strive to work harder for the people as well as the party,” said Mahato.
Two-time MLA Bikram Chandra Pradhan from Dantan in West Midnapore also had a scare across several rounds of counting where he trailed from his BJP opponent Saktipada Nayek but pulled it back at the right moment winning the election by 623 votes. In 2016, he had a victory margin of 29260 votes from his nearest CPI competitor.
“My margin has gone down due to a factional feud in our party. Our party workers at Dantan block II have worked against me which has resulted in more votes for the opponent. But I am glad that people have still blessed me with enough votes that I can continue serving them one more time and I won’t fail them,” said Pradhan.
Another winner, Ajay Poddar of BJP, who narrowly pulled it off from Kulti, said that he accepted the public verdict. “The assembly elections were like a football game where every minute there will be moments of excitement. But, I knew that my defenders were strong and I was confident that the final verdict would be announced in my favour,” Poddar added.
His winning margin was 679 votes.