LF Registers Massive Triumph In Asansol Lok Sabha By-Election

B Prasant

BENGAL Left Front’s CPI(M) candidate, Bangsa Gopal Chaudhuri has won the Lok Sabha by-election for the Asansol seat by a thumping margin of nearly 2.3 lakh votes that left the Trinamul Congress and Pradesh Congress candidates floundering in the wake. The votes won by the CPI (M) candidate were greater than those won in 2004. The winning edge in 2005 is 2,29,778 votes; the margin of victory in 2004 was 1,24,318 votes. The table below tells the story.

Congratulating the people of Asansol for ensuring a big triumph for the Left Front candidate in the Lok Sabha by-elections, secretary of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M), and senior Bengal Left Front leader, Anil Biswas said that of late a secular trend was on show regarding increase of popular support of the Left Front and the CPI(M) as demonstrated in the elections held. 

In each recently held election – local, state-level, and Lok Sabha – the margin of the Left Front and CPI(M) candidates had gone perceptively up as shown in the figures below.

The popular support base of the Bengal Left Front and the CPI(M), said Anil Biswas, kept growing over the recent years, and the people had emphatically demonstrated, through this increasing electoral support, their firm view that there was no alternative to Left Front.  ‘What the people want,’ said Biswas ‘is to strengthen the Left Front further in the years to come.’

EC OBSERVERS IMPROPREITY

Anil Biswas pointed out that the by-poll saw a few election observers virtually working for the opposition. An example was the insistence of some election observers about vehicles, carrying Left Front workers and supporters to chief minister’s Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s rally, having to get permits while such was not held necessary in the rallies held by the opposition leadership.

Biswas said that the CPI(M) had assured the election commission that it would observe and abide by whatever regulations the commission preferred to put in place for the Asansol by-polls.  However, the poll results could demonstrate how the electorate could not be bluffed into taking the wrong move merely by piling on pressure in terms of restrictions.  The Left Front would remain deep amidst the people, and, said Biswas, ‘this is our point of strength.’