West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lost the Nandigram assembly constituency to former aide and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari on Sunday. However, she is set to win the state, leading in 213 of the 292 seats that voted.
Thanking the people of West Bengal, Adhikari tweeted, “My sincere thanks to the great People of Nandigram for their love, trust, blessings, and support, and for choosing me as their representative and the MLA from #Nandigram. It is my never-ending commitment to be of service to them and working for their welfare. I am truly grateful!.”
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The results were declared after hours of speculation. As counting of votes progressed, Adhikari maintained a decent lead. At one point, he was leading by more than 10,000 votes. Then came total blackout as EC servers crashed around 1 pm. Hours after that, Banerjee emerged at 6 pm to thank people for the landslide victory for her party and to accept the ‘Nandigram verdict’
The Chief Minister expressed doubt about the outcome saying she would move the court. “I accept the verdict. But I will move the court because I have information that after the declaration of results there were some manipulations done and I will reveal those,” Banerjee said, according to ANI.
Adhikari defeated the CM by 1,736 votes. According to the Election Commission, the BJP leader got 109,673 votes.
Thanking the people of Bengal for the ‘landslide win’, Banerjee said, “Don’t worry about Nandigram, I struggled for Nandigram because I fought a movement. It’s ok. Let the Nandigram people give whatever verdict they want, I accept that. I don’t mind. We won more than 221 seats and the BJP has lost the election,” Mamata Banerjee said.