Trinamool happy with Manipur results, says UP's not bad either

The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday expressed satisfaction with the results of its candidates for the Manipur Assembly elections and said that those in Uttar Pradesh have also done well.

"We stepped into Manipur for the first time. We have won 10 per cent of the Assembly seats. We are the main opposition in that state," the party all-India general secretary and Union Minister of State for Shipping Mukul Roy told newsmen at the state secretariat.

Roy, who earlier met party chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, said its candidates in UP have not fared badly.

"One of our candidates polled one lakh votes and lost by 2,000 votes only," he said.

Senior TC leader and West Bengal Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee said the party had done well in the elections although it did not put in an all out effort.

"The Chief Minister is our star campaigner. She went to Manipur and we won seven seats. Although she did not go to UP, we were expecting at least one of our candidates would win the Mathura and Varanasi seats. That did not happen, but our candidates polled a good percentage of votes," he said.

Mukherjee said he was 'happy' to see that both the Left parties and the BJP were 'nowhere to be seen' after the results were announced.

He said the Trinamool Congress, which wants a national symbol, will now have an advantage in terms of the percentage of votes polled by its candidates during the election.