Kolkata: Outgoing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was defeated on Monday by the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, by a margin of 15,114 votes.
This is the second time that Mamata Banerjee has been defeated by Suvendu Adhikari after she was defeated by him from Nandigram assembly constituency in the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections by a margin of a little less than 2,000 votes.
Incidentally, Adhikari also contested from the Nandigram constituency besides Bhabanipur and this time he has been simultaneously elected from both Bhabanipur and Nandigram
However, his victory margin from Nandigram this time is 9,000, lesser that from that in Bhabanipur.
Speaking to the media persons after his victory from Bhabanipur, Adhikari said that since the beginning, he had been claiming that just as he defeated Mamata Banerjee from Nandigram in 2011, he would defeat her this time from Bhabanipur.
“That has happened exactly this time. In Bhabanipur, I did not get the Muslim votes. But the people from all the other religions from Bhabanipur ensured my victory. In Nandigram, my margin is lesser since the percentage of Muslim voters there is more than that in Bhabanipur,” he added.
Mamata Banerjee is the second sitting Chief Minister in West Bengal after late Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was defeated.
In 2011, which marked the end of the 34-year Left Front regime in West Bengal and the beginning of the Trinamool Congress regime in the state, Bhattacharjee was defeated in his traditional Assembly constituency of Jadavpur in South 24 Parganas district by the Trinamool Congress candidate Manish Gupta.
However, after that, Bhattacharjee refrained from contesting further till his demise in August 2024,
Mamata Banerjee, the first sitting Chief Minister in West Bengal, has been defeated twice, first in Nandigram in 2021 and then in Bhabanipur in 2026. Incidentally, both times, she had been defeated by her once close confidant, Suvendu Adhikari.
(IANS)
