Sabang, in West Midnapore district of Bengal, has been largely in the news in the past for occasional political skirmishes. A Congress bastion, it has been for long the pocket borough of senior leader Manas Bhunia. He retained his seat even when other Congress stalwarts fell by the wayside unable to withstand Mamata wave. Thus when he switched party this year, it was a foregone conclusion that TMC will win the seat. The party had nominated Manas Bhunia's wife as the candidate, and she indeed won with a handsome margin of 64 thousand votes.
The real toss-up was who would end up in the second spot. And, somewhat unexpectedly CPI(M) candidate Rita Mandal Jana ended up the first runner-up getting 41,000 votes. However, the BJP which invested a lot of man-power in this election wasn't far behind with Antara Bhattacharya winning over 37 thousand votes. It's a massive leg-up for the party in a rural seat like Sabang where it got only 5610 votes in last year's assembly election. The party this time won 18.23% of the votes, up from 2.60% in 2016. Congress ended a poor fourth, with its vote bank virtually collapsing post the exit of Manas Bhuniya.
While Sabang is a single assembly bypoll, but it leaves some important pointers for next year's Panchayat polls in Bengal. The Left's core vote is still intact in rural Bengal. It has depleted from its past highs but is still enough to earn sizeable number of seats in the Panchayat poll. The BJP undoubtedly is gaining ground rapidly in interior Bengal. After a promising performance in Kochbehar LS bypoll and Kanthi Assembly bypoll, the party has again punched way above its weight and narrowly ended third. The fact that Sabang is in South Bengal shouldn't be missed. An impressive BJP show here means the party is now present in all the major regions of the state.
Sabang was the first election after Mukul Roy joined the BJP. He was Mamata's former close aide, who knows how to build organisation and run a successful campaign. He alongside Dilip Ghosh and Babul Supriyo did their best to canvass for the party, and managed a positive result in a place where the party has very little ground game. BJP can take lot of heart from this result and work towards becoming the second biggest party in the next panchayat polls. But it would find it difficult to match the organisational prowess of the ruling party. TMC is the party to beat in Bengal with very little indication of it being closely challenged in the upcoming polls. The race is firmly for the second spot in Bengal.
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