The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the repoll for Bengal's Falta assembly seat on Sunday with its candidate Debangshu Panda winning by a record margin of 109,021 votes.
Panda secured 149,666 votes, while Trinamool Congress (TMC) came in fourth with 7,783 votes, losing its electoral deposit for the first time since 2011.
The assembly seat has around 225,000 voters of whom about 165,000 are Hindus. The Falta repoll was ordered because a section of Hindu voters alleged that Jahangir Khan, the TMC candidate, and his men had prevented them from voting in any election since 2011.
Chief minister Suvendu Adhikari thanked the voters and criticised the TMC without naming it, saying that the party had turned into a 'mafia company' and its defeat had exposed its skeleton.
