West Bengal Assembly Bypolls: TMC wins all four seats

West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress yesterday swept all the four bypolls in assembly seats in the state wresting two of them from Bharatiya Janata Party which also suffered setbacks in bye-elections in two northern Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Haryana.

The saffron party and its allies swept all the bypolls in Assam, Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya.

The biggest boost to main opposition Congress came in BJP-ruled Himachal Pradesh where the Sonia Gandhi-led party swept all the four bypolls including one for Lok Sabha and three assembly seats.

Congress, which rules Rajasthan, also retained two assemblies in the desert state where the saffron party is hoping to return to power.

But in Meghalaya, Congress was jolted when BJP ally National People's Party bagged all three assembly seats, wresting Rajabala and Mawryngkneng seats from Congress.

Yesterday's bypoll results must have put BJP in a spot of bother as they came months before the next round of assembly elections in five states including the most populous Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Punjab.

In Bengal, TMC candidate Udayan Guha, son of former minister Kamal Guha, won the Dinhata seat in northern part of the state, previously held by BJP, by a record margin of 1,63,005 votes.

Similarly, TMC nominee Subrata Mondal clinched the Gosaba assembly seat in south 24 Parganas district by a margin of 1,43,051 votes. TMC also won in Khardah and Santipur assembly segments by a margin of 93,832 and 64,675 votes respectively. Santipur seat was previously held by BJP.

The TMC wrested the Dinhata and Santipur seats in Coochbehar and Nadia districts respectively from the BJP by huge margins, to raise its tally to 215 in the 294-member West Bengal assembly.

The BJP saw its tally came down to 75 from an earlier 77.