Ballygunge assembly seat byelection winner Babul Supriyo of the Trinamul Congress and runner-up Saira Shah Halim of the CPI(M) entered into a battle of words on social media on Sunday, with the former BJP MP attacking her for showing "no class" after defeat and terming the Left party's campaign as "below the belt".

Taking to Twitter to retaliate, Halim said that her party believes in a classless society where the rich and the poor will not be differentiated by the wealth and property they own.

"I am relieved that we won Ballygunge defeating the vile, dirty, often below the belt, personal & false propaganda of @CPIM_WESTBENGAL," Supriyo tweeted.

Supriyo, who joined the TMC in September last year after being dropped as a minister of state from the Narendra Modi government, claimed that BJP candidate Keya Ghosh had her deposit forfeited for getting less than 6 per cent of the total votes cast.

The newly-elected MLA from the prestigious Ballygunge seat in south Kolkata earlier tweeted, "Even after a filthy deplorable campaign full of lies & deceit @CPIM_WESTBENGAL & Saira Shah Halim shows no class, forget shame."

He also sought to remind the CPM that it has no representation in the West Bengal assembly with the Left Front not winning any seat in the 2021 elections in the state.

Reacting to Supriyo's tweets, Halim said, "We believe in a classless society, where rich and poor will not be differentiated by the wealth and property they own. Anyone who judges me as having 'no class', knows what he is fighting against," she tweeted.

Saira Shah Halim (R) Twitter/@sairashahhalim

Accusing the CPM of resorting to a communal campaign in the byelection to Ballygunge, where more than 50 per cent of the electorate are from the minority community, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said, "It may have got some votes, but that does not mean a revival of the CPM is on the cards."

Ghosh said that the TMC leadership will look into how the Left party got more votes than what it had bagged in the last elections.

He said that the CPM's performance in the Asansol Lok Sabha by-election, which was won by the TMC's Shatrughan Sinha with the BJP coming second, has been disastrous.

Rising from just 5.61 per cent of the vote share in Ballygunge in the 2021 assembly elections, the CPIM) candidate notched up over 30 per cent of the votes polled in the by-poll, leaving behind the BJP to come up to the second position.

The CPM last won from Ballygunge in 2001 and secured a third position behind the TMC and the BJP in the 2021 elections, which her husband Fuad Halim had contested.