The big win of the Trinamool Congress in all the three seats in West Bengal byelections would give Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee an upper hand in the state Assembly where Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari used to taunt her as a non-MLA chief minister.
Banerjee won the Bhabanipur seat with a record margin of 58,835 votes.
This was not the first time Banerjee became chief minister as a non-MLA. In 2011 she did not contest election and later stood for bypoll six months after the thumping victory of the Trinamool Congress.
Now, winning all the three seats, Banerjee would enter the Assembly holding her head high.
The BJP camp had not expected a win at all. Adhikari had even told the voters that he had informed the central leadership of the party that if Priyanka Tibrewal, who stood against Banerjee, would win from Bhabanipur, she should be made the leader of opposition instead of him.
Now Adhikari would have to face a confident chief minister in the house.
Banerjee would now have two tasks. One is to find a finance minister as Amit Mitra who is all set to lose his chair as he did not contest the Assembly election or byelection. And the second is to get Agriculture Minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay elected from Khardha. Chattopadhya, who sacrificed his Bhabanipur seat to help Banerjee get elected from there, would contest Khardha byelection which is scheduled to be held on October 30.
Banerjee would now begin her regional target in Northeast. To step up heat on BJP in Northeast, Banerjee would like to induct many Congressmen from Northeast in the coming days. Some BJP MLAs from Tripura are also in touch with her.
The byelection would now open another kind of political tussle between TMC and BJP.
