West Bengal bypolls present an opportunity for BJP to arrest its decline

With 213 seats in its bag, the second round of bypolls will not have much political significance for TMC

The scheduled bypolls to four West Bengal Assembly constituencies on October 30 will be a litmus test for the Opposition parties, particularly the BJP that suffered a setback in the last Assembly polls.

With 213 seats in its bag, the second round of bypolls will not have much political significance for the Trinamool Congress (TMC). But for the BJP, it will be a chance to get back some political ground. In the three bypolls held on September 30, the TMC won all, including Bhabanipur that was bagged by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Other than these electoral victories, five elected representatives of the BJP have switched over to the TMC camp in the past five months.

Of the four seats going to the polls, Shantipur in Nadia and Dinhata in Coochbehar were won by the BJP in this year Assembly polls. Nisith Pramanik, BJP MP from Coocbehar, won Dinhata by a margin of just 57 votes and MP Jagannath Sarkar secured Shantipur by a margin of 15,878 votes. However, both did not take oath as MLAs as directed by the party leadership. This caused the bypolls.