"I'm confident (of the win)."
Veteran actor Shatrughan Sinha has won West Bengal’s Asansol Lok Sabha by-election in a landslide victory.
He defeated Bharatiya Janata Party’s Agnimitra Paul by more than 200,000 votes.
Sinha had been a member of the Indian National Congress since 2019.
But in March 2022, he joined the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) to contest the Asansol Lok Sabha by-election.
For the Ballygunge Assembly by-poll, the BJP fielded Keya Ghosh while Saira Shah Halim was the CPI(M) candidate.
Former Union minister Babul Supriyo is also in the fray from the AITC.
The by-election for the Asansol Lok Sabha seat was held after Supriyo resigned from the Lower House after quitting the BJP.
The Ballygunge Assembly seat by-poll was necessitated after the demise of state Minister Subrata Mukherjee.
Supriyo said: “I’m confident (of the win).
“The 41 per cent voters’ turnout here rubbishes the Opposition’s unnecessary claims of false voting.
“Had that been the case, would the turnout have been this huge? West Bengal is with Didi (Mamata Banerjee) and TMC.”
On April 12, 2022, Agnimitra Paul claimed that AITC supporters assaulted her security personnel and threw stones at her convoy.
Meanwhile, Supriyo alleged the BJP had committed electoral malpractice.
Following AITC’s victory, Paul accepted defeat but took a dig at opposition parties, claiming that a “few cases of rigging were seen at some places”.
She added: “There were some shortcomings from our end because of which we had to face defeat.
“The public’s verdict will be accepted. Few cases of rigging were seen at some places but central forces worked really well.
“We will work at grassroots levels in the forthcoming days.”
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee thanked voters from the Asansol Lok Sabha seat and Ballygunge Assembly Constituency for giving a decisive mandate to TMC candidates in both the seats, where by-polls were held.
She said: “I sincerely thank the electors of the Asansol Parliamentary Constituency and the Ballygunge Assembly Constituency for giving the decisive mandate to AITC party candidates.
“We consider this to be our people’s warm Shubho Nababarsho gift to our Ma- Mati- Manush organisation.
“Salute to the voters for reposing faith in us, yet again.”
Following his victory, Shatrughan Sinha said he was “grateful to Asansol’s people and to Mamata Banerjee for this victory”.
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