Statesman News Service
MALDA, Sept. 19: Malda has paid tributes to ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury by returning his brother and Congress candidate Mr AH Khan Choudhury. The polls showed Barkat da still rules Malda.An elated Mr AH Khan Choudhury has attributed his victory to Ghani Khan. Mr Choudhury also thanked the Trinamul Congress supremo Miss Mamata Banerjee for supporting the Congress in the by-poll. He denied Mr Sailen Sarkar’s allegation that the Congress and the BJP had reached a secret understanding in the run-up to the polls here. Reacting to her brother’s win, Mrs Rubi Noor, president of Malda district Congress, said: “Today’s result has proved that the people of Malda will never forget Barkatda. Many people had written off the Congress here but the voters have proved them wrong.”#
Win re-run in by-polls
Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, Sept. 19: The CPI-(M)-led Left Front and the Congress and the Trinamul Congress today retained their seats in Saturday’s by-election to three Lok Sabha and one Assembly seats. The CPI-(M) and Forward Bloc held their sway over the predominantly rural Katwa and Purulia Lok Sabha seats, respectively, while the Congress retained the Malda Lok Sabha berth and the Trinamul the Bongaon Assembly seat.“We lost Bongaon and Malda because our organisation is weak there. It’s weak, weak, weak!” CPI-(M) state secretary Mr Biman Bose cried at the party’s Alimuddin Street headquarters while taking pride in the Katwa candidate’s ability to increase his margin of win. Mr Bose did not mention, though, why the Purulia margin had gone down. The Congress was upbeat and was already making plans for a merger. “We are not asking Miss Banerjee to leave the NDA immediately, but efforts will be made for the Trinamul’s merger with the Congress,” Dr Manas Bhuniya, senior Congress leader said. In fact, the Congress President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, called Trinamul chief Miss Mamata Banerjee to congratulate her on her party’s Bongaon victory. Though the by-election results declared today turned out to be predictable, the call from the Congress president to the principal Opposition leader in the state indicated that significant political changes are in the offing. But the unofficial electoral adjustment between the Congress and the Trinamul could not clinch any landslide victory. Riding the sympathy wave following the death of his brother ABA Ghani Khan Chowdhury, Congress candidate Mr AHA Khan Chowdhury defeated CPI-(M)’s Mr Sailen Sarkar by 83,391 votes. Mr Sarkar managed to poll more votes, though, than the CPI-(M) candidate who faced the late Ghani Khan Chowdhury in 2001 elections and lost by 1,10,000 votes.
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