Skewed stats about Abhishek Banerjee's Lok Sabha win lead to BJP, CPM crying foul

The heavily skewed nature of the booth-wise data has now led to the opposition charging that the polls were rigged by the ruling Trinamool Congress. 
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with nephew and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee. (Photo | File/ PTI)
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with nephew and TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee. (Photo | File/ PTI)

KOLKATA: A booth-wise analysis of results in the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency in West Bengal has thrown up a startling fact -- Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek has bagged nearly 2.5 lakh votes of the 2.8 lakh polled in 333 booths. This was over 89% of the votes polled.

In the remaining 1,600 booths, Abhishek got around 5.4 lakh votes of the 11.2 lakh votes polled.

He had won the polls by a margin of 3,20,594 votes. The heavily skewed nature of the booth-wise data has now led to the opposition charging that the polls were rigged by the ruling Trinamool Congress. 

The Election Commission records have corroborated the numbers available with the political parties. For instance, in a booth (No. 50) in Falta Assembly constituency, 607 electors exercised their franchise and the Trinamool bagged 603 votes, a little over 99%.

The skewed statistics come in the backdrop of Mamata’s allegations of EVM tampering by the BJP in the elections. “I do not accept the results… because EVMs were tampered,” Mamata has repeatedly said.

The BJP and CPM have demanded a re-poll in all the booths in Diamond Harbour holding the TMC responsible for large-scale rigging and booth capturing. The Left has already lodged a complaint mentioning names and numbers of 330 booths with the EC.

“Our polling agents were driven out of booths in many places. We lodged complaints with the commission with photo and video evidence. But nothing happened,” said CPM’s Fuad Halim, who contested against Abhishek.

BJP’s Diamond Harbour candidate Nilanjan Roy said the saffron party got zero to 20 votes in many booths. “We have mentioned the booths with details in our complaints to the EC. We are mulling legal action. We might move the court with the booth wise statistics challenging the election results in Diamond Habour,’’ he said.

Trinamool’s South 24-Parganas district president Subhasish Chakrabarty said the election was conducted under the supervision of the central forces. “People gave us massive support in some pockets and the booth wise results are a reflection. The allegations are baseless,’’ he said.

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