Hitting out at Mamata Banerjee over her opposition to demonetisation, BJP national Secretary Siddharth Nath Singh today said the West Bengal Chief Minister's protest was driven by her "nervousness" over BJP's growth rate in Bengal.
"Though we have lost in the Lok Sabha by-polls in Cooch Behar and Tamluk, if you look at the results you will see how BJP has increased its vote share by leaps and bounds in Bengal. If you compare the results with 2014 Lok Sabha polls, you will see the rise in BJP's vote share. BJP has even come second in the Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seat," Singh told PTI.
"The growth of BJP in Bengal has made Mamata Banerjee and her party nervous and that is why they are shouting so much against demonetisation. They should stop spreading canards on this issue as the results have vindicated our stand on demonetisation. It shows that people have supported our decision and that is why our vote share has increased," Singh said.
The opposition CPI(M) and Congress, meanwhile, dubbed the bypolls as "farce" and alleged TMC had unleashed a reign of terror on the day of polls.
"The elections were a complete farce and that is why we had withdrawn our candidate from Monteswar assembly seat. The picture of terror being unleashed in two other Lok Sabha seats was clear on the day of polls," state Congress President Adhir Chowdhury said.
"There was rampant rigging and malpractices on the day of polls," a CPI(M) leader said.
Trinamool Congress today retained the two Lok Sabha seats and one Assembly seat in West Bengal where bypolls were held on November 19.
TMC candidate Dibyendu Adhikari won Tamluk Lok Sabha seat by defeating his nearest CPI(M) rival Mandira Panda by 4.97 lakh votes, up from 2.5 lakh votes in 2014. The CPI(M) candidate secured 2.82 lakh votes down from 4.7 lakhs in 2014 and BJP secured 1.9 lakh up from 86,000 votes in last parliamentary polls.
The party won the Cooch Behar LS seat with its candidate Parthapratim Roy drubbing his nearest rival BJP's Hemchandra Burman by a margin of 4.9 lakh votes and pushed Forward Bloc, a LF partner to the third position.
The BJP had come up as the first runner-up securing 3.7 lakh votes up from 2.1 lakh votes in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Significantly the BJP had edged out Left Front partner Forward Bloc to a distant third position which had secured 86,000 votes down from 4.8 lakh votes in 2014 parliamentary polls.
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