The Trinamul Congress has managed to retain both the two Lok Sabha seats in Birbhum district easily, despite the absence of its firebrand former district president Anubrata Mondal.
Shatabdi Roy and Asit Mal, the TMC candidates of Birbhum and Bolpur Lok Sabha seats have retained both their seats by defeating their nearest BJP rival today.
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BJP took a long time to announce the name of its Birbhum Lok Sabha candidate and finalized the name of former promote IPS officer Debashish Dhar, but his nomination papers were rejected.
Debtanu Bhattacharya, the BJP candidate was an unknown face and Congress fielded veteran Milton Rashid.
PM Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda and other big leaders campaigned in Birbhum in the absence of Anubrata Mondal, who is lodged in Tihar jail in connection with the cross-border cattle smuggling case and thought that the saffron brigade has a major chance of wresting the two Birbhum LS seats.
In absence of Anubrata Mondal, chief minister Mamata Banerjee came to Birbhum several times and so did TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee by campaigning extensively for Shatabdi Roy and Asit Mal.
“We thank the people of Birbhum for rejecting the BJP and helping us to win both the two LS seats. Our party has fought the elections in the guidelines of Kestoda and all of us missed him in these polls,” said Kajal Sheikh, Sabhadhipati of Birbhum zilla parishad.
During her last election campaign in Birbhum last month, Miss Banerjee has said that how long the ED and the CBI will keep Anubrata Mondal behind the bars, acknowledging his organizational skills the Bengal CM said that a day will also come when Kesto will be out on bail.
