The Hindu : Front Page : Mamata calls it a “vote against atrocities”

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Wednesday, Nov 11, 2009
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Mamata calls it a “vote against atrocities”

Marcus Dam

Trinamool Congress won seven of the 10 seats
Independent backed by GJM wins from Kalchini

KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance in West Bengal swept the Assembly by-elections, bagging eight of the 10 seats that went to the polls on November 7. The ruling Left Front and the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) shared the remaining seats. The results were announced on Tuesday.

The GJM made its presence felt for the first time in the electoral map of the plains of north Bengal, where an Independent backed by it won. While the Trinamool Congress won in all the seven constituencies where it had put up its nominees, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) lost in all the five it contested, failing to retain two. The Congress could hold on to one of the two seats it had held with the All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) wresting the other from it.

The Independent’s win in Kalchini in Jalpaiguri district is expected to strengthen the GJM leadership’s demand for the inclusion of the Dooars region of the district (where Kalchini is located) into its proposed Gorkhaland, comprising the Darjeeling hills and certain areas contiguous to it.

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee dedicated the victory to “the peace-loving people” of the State and described the electoral outcome as a “vote against atrocities” and a “vote against State-sponsored terrorism.”

“If they [the Left Front] do not take a lesson after this also, I am sorry… It will only request the Centre to please take care and give protection to people,” she told journalists in New Delhi.

Secretary of the West Bengal State Committee of the CPI(M) Biman Bose admitted that except for the Goalpokhor seat, “the people had given their mandate against the Left Front candidates.”

The reasons would be analysed and looked into, he said.

The mood in the Trinamool Congress camp was upbeat, particularly over the wresting of Kolkata’s Belgachia East constituency from the CPI(M), which has held it since 1977. The losing CPI(M) candidate was Ramola Chakraborty, wife of the late senior party leader Subhas Chakraborty.

The Congress lost Goalpokhor in Uttar Dinajpur district to the AIFB. The seat was previously held by party heavyweight Deepa Dasmunshi, who is now an MP.

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