The CPM on Wednesday sprang a surprise by winning a ward in the Chandernagore Municipal Corporation bypoll for the first time in 32 years.

The bypoll in ward 17 of Chandernagore had to be held as then BJP candidate had died after filing his nomination papers for the February civic polls.

Elated at winning the ward that the party had last won in 1990, a senior CPM leader said: “It may be a single ward of a civic body but the victory of our candidate is significant here as the party could bag the seat after 32 years. The victory proved that the party slowly but definitely is regaining the trust of the people.”

CPM candidate Ashok Ganguly bagged 1,018 out of the 2,017 votes polled and won the ward by 130 votes against his nearest Trinamul contestant Sujit Nath.

The BJP nominee in Chandernagore lost its deposit by getting 67 votes.

“The Chandernagore result proves that if there is free and fair elections, people are ready to vote for the Left instead of the BJP or Trinamul,” said CPM veteran Sujan Chakraborty.

Wednesday results of the six municipal bypolls — held in one ward each in Hooghly’s Chandernagore, Purulia’s Jhalda and North 24-Parganas’ South Dum Dum, Dum Dum, Bhatpara and Panihati — showed a continuation of the trend of the Left clawing back to emerge ahead of the BJP in electoral battles held after the 2021 Assembly elections.

Left and BJP

The CPM won one ward and got a cumulative poll percentage of 11.89 in the five seats that the party contested.

The BJP on lost all the six wards that went to the bypolls and finished third in five places. Across all six bypolls, the BJP secured a vote share of 7.14 per cent.

The BJP is trying to adjust to the realisation that it is emerging behind the Left in most electoral battles after the Assembly polls.

In Bhatpara, Trinamul candidate Kanaklata Das won the by-election from ward 3 defeating her nearest rival CPM’s Rinki Shaw by 1,171 votes.

In Dum Dum, Trinamul candidate Tapas Roy won from ward 4 defeating his nearest CPM rival Santanu Bardhan by 2,747 votes.

In South Dum Dum’s ward 29, Trinamul’s Bonoshree Chatterjee defeated nearest rival, BJP’s Moushumi Sen. by 9,532 votes

A source said that it appeared that all the BJP candidates lost their deposits, going by the fact that they received less than one-sixth of the total votes polled in each ward.

“These results are proof that we are heading towards disaster in Bengal’s electoral politics. We have no organisational strength, we are not winning….and it appears that our leaders are least interested in changing the status quo,” a BJP source lamented.