AGARTALA, Sept 27 - BJP candidate Mimi Majumder Das today won the by-election to the Badharghat (SC) Assembly constituency by a margin of 5,276 votes. The polling was held on September 23.
Majumder, a former teacher, bagged 20,487 votes against the 15,211 secured by her nearest rival, Bulti Biswas of the CPI (M). Congress nominee Ratan Chandra Das obtained 9,105 votes, while SUCI candidate Mridul Kanti Sarkar got 470 votes. Altogether 667 NOTA (none of the above) votes were registered in the bypoll.
Significantly, the combined vote share of the CPI (M) and the Congress is more than the BJP�s. In fact the Congress could considerably increase the number of votes from 505 in the Assembly election last year to 9,105 votes in the by-election.
On the other hand, the CPI (M) is yet to cover a lot of ground at Badharghat. The Left party had secured 23,666 votes in the 2013 polls. The number of votes came down to 23,113 in the Assembly elections of 2018. In the current bypoll, the party won 15,211 votes, registering a further decline.
BJP spokesperson Nabendu Bhattacharjee has expressed satisfaction over the by-election results. �The victory is due to the hard work put in by party workers. We thank the voters for reposing their trust in the Biplab Kumar Deb-led Government in the State,� he said.
Bhattacharjee said the winning margin of Das has increased by one percent in comparison to the 2018 Assembly elections. �It shows that the people are happy with the BJP Government,� he claimed.
Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson Tapas De said that his party had expected a better result. He, however, maintained that the Congress is on course of consolidating its vote bank.
