The Left-backed Congress contestant, Bayron Biswas today won over his prime opponent, Debashis Bandopadhyay of the Trinamul Congress at Sagardighi Assembly constituency where by-election was held on 27 February.

Today’s victory of the Congress candidate, Bayron Biswas at Sagardighi constituency enabled the Congress-Left combine to have its only representative in the Assembly. Both the parties had no MLA in the present Assembly.

Explaining how the Congress contestant upset the Trinamul applecart at Sagardighi, the state Congress president, Adhir Chowdhury said that the electorate of Muslim-dominated Sagardighi constituency has been disillusioned by chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her party Trinamul Congress. The minority voters this time stayed away from the TMC mainly due to Mamata Banerjee’s unkept promises to Muslims, said Chowdhury who is also the leader of the Congress party in Lok Sabha. The chief minister could not keep her promises on issues of development, including recognition and upgrade of madrassas, the Congress leader alleged.

Moreover, the Muslim voters did not like the double standard of Mamata Banerjee on the issue of NRC, Chowdhury explained. When an election is round the corner, Miss Banerjee makes an appeal for Muslim unity against BJP while the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi unwraps his hidden political agenda in the garb of NRC, CAA etc. only at election times and this is something the Muslims are fed up with, observed the Congress lawmaker.

According to political analysts, it is quite rare that a ruling party in the state loses a by-election and it appears to be an exception.

Way back in 2011, when the TMC-led Mamata Banerjee came to power, Subrata Saha was the only TMC MLA, who won from Sagardighi seat in Murshidabad district. Saha retained the seat in the following elections making Sagardighi a TMC stronghold and Mamata Banerjee made him a minister. In 2016, Saha won the seat by securing a mere 26 per cent votes and he improved upon his support base in the following Assembly polls of 2021 when he secured about 51 per cent votes from Sagardighi.

Saha died in December last year, causing the by-election.

According to political experts, the TMC could not capitalize all of its women vote bank because many of the housewives of male-dominated families like to follow their husbands or male guardians while exercising their right to vote.

“CPM leaders like Biman Bose, Mohammad Selim, Minakshi Mukherjee etc extended cent percent support to me and I feel grateful to them,” said Bayron Biswas shortly after his victory was announced today. “But the actual game-changer was my leader, Adhir Chowdhury,” said Bayron. Chowdhury also praise the winner, saying, “Bayron is a man of iron. He is going to be the face of change in Bengal.”