Kolkata, June 4 Trinamool Congress' Abhishek Banerjee’s victory margin from the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency has broken a 20-year-old record in West Bengal. The ruling party General Secretary is set to create a new one as the counting continues.
Exactly 20 years ago, in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, the CPI(M) candidate from Arambagh late Anil Basu, a seven-time Lok Sabha member from that constituency, won by a margin of 5,92,502 votes.
This was a record winning margin from any Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal for the next two decades.
However, with some more rounds of counting yet to be completed Abhishek Banerjee’s winning margin from Diamond Harbour has already crossed 6.50 lakh.
In the 2019 elections, Abhishek Banerjee won Diamond Harbour by a little over 3.20 lakh votes.
This year, he had set a target to increase his winning margin to over four lakh.
However, admit Trinamool Congress insiders, a margin surpassing even the past record was not expected by them.
Political observers say that there are several factors behind Abhishek Banerjee’s thumping performance.
First, the minority voters, who constitute a substantial chunk of voters in the constituency, have voted en-masse in favour of Banerjee and neither CPI(M) nor All India Secular Front (AISF) could make any substantial dent in that dedicated vote bank of the ruling party.
The second factor is the late announcement of the candidate by the BJP from Diamond Harbour.
The third factor, according to them, is the Direct Transfer Benefit scheme of the state government that has substantially contributed to this sweeping victory.
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