Rampant corruption by some ministers led to Sagardighi defeat: Trinamool MP

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Thursday suffered an unexpected defeat, that too by a big margin, in the bypoll to the Sagardighi Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district, which was considered an erstwhile stronghold of West Bengal's ruling party.

In the bypoll, which was necessitated by the death of three-time Trinamool MLA Subrata Saha in December last year, Left-backed Congress candidate Bayron Biswas defeated Trinamool's Debasish Bandopadhyay by a massive margin of 22,986 votes.

The defeat has led to deep introspections within the Trinamool Congress with the party's Lok Sabha member Aparupa Poddar aka Afrin Ali admitting on Friday that rampant corruption had an impact on the poll results.

The two-time MP from Arambagh in Hooghly district posted a message on social media, wherein she also said that the comments and statements by a section of heavyweight party leaders damaged the party's image to a great extent.

"We have been shown the red card because of the misdeeds of some heavyweight ministers. Some other heavyweight leaders are making certain statements which are also damaging the party's image," Poddar said.

Although she did not name anybody, her hints were towards former Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, who is currently in jail for his alleged involvement in the multi-crore teachers' recruitment scam.

In fact, Trinamool sources admitted that introspection has started within the party on the disastrous result in the minority-dominated Sagardighi constituency, where the Left Front-supported Congress candidate won with 28 per cent vote swing in his favour.

"Initially, we thought that the erstwhile dedicated Congress and Left voters who shifted to the BJP in the last few elections have again gone back to the Congress-Left alliance. But after the results were declared, it was evident that the alliance candidate was also befitted largely by the negative vote swing witnessed by our candidate in the bypoll, which was around 15 per cent. So, a massive vote swing cannot be just because of the alliance. The issue of corruption surely played a role in the results. Even from behind the bars, Partha Chatterjee's presence could be felt in the bypoll result," said a senior member of the state cabinet, who refused to be named.

Officially, however, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said that the results were an impact of an unholy nexus where BJP was also a clandestine party in the pact.

"Officially, the Congress and Left Front were in alliance at Sagardighi, but unofficially BJP was also a part of the alliance. The common goal of the BJP, Congress and Left was to defeat Trinamool at any cost. However, our struggle against such unholy nexus will continue and the people of West Bengal will give them a fitting reply in the coming days," Banerjee had said on Thursday.