Kolkata: Bhowanipur finally refused on Monday Mamata Banerjee After three terms in office, the Bengal chief minister was ousted from her hometown in Kolkata in a tight contest, with her protégé-turned-foe Suvendu Adhikari defeating her by 15,105 votes.Mamata found it difficult to accept the result, claiming that she and her TMC Defeated by “force”, the electoral process was manipulated by the PPP led by Adhikari, and the votes were “plundered”. To make matters worse, she alleged that she was attacked by BJP activists and central forces nearly five hours after leaving the counting center at Sakhawat Memorial High School.ALSO READ |Lotus blooming in West Bengal: Ten initiatives to help the BJP breach Mamata Banerjee’s bastionAfter the 18th round of counting in the afternoon, trends showed her trailing by over 10,994 votes, with Mamata remaining unchanged. Finally, the EC determined that Adhikari had 73,917 votes and Mamata had 58,812 votes.Bhowanipur is the center of the World Bank’s political battleground, and the atmosphere on Monday was one of accusations, counter-allegations and street theatrics, with statistics fluctuating wildly throughout the day.The early trends were in favor of Adhikari, who took the lead in the first round. But after the third round, Mamata bounced back. She established her dominance in the seventh round, leading by more than 19,000 votes at one point, sparking talk that the contest could swing decisively in her favour.
However, this perception proved short-lived. Adhikari made a swift comeback by claiming that Mamata’s rise was driven by a minority-dominated vote. By the 12th round, the gap narrowed to just over 7,000 votes and then narrowed further to 5,300 votes, setting the stage for a tense contest that echoed the intensity of the showdown in 2021 when Mamata lost to Adhikari in Nandigram. Later that year, she won Bhowanipore in a by-election.Tensions further came to a head on Monday when the TMC alleged that its Bhowanipur vote counters were attacked and ejected by the BJP. Earlier, the chief minister rushed to the venue after calling on workers to “fight like little tigers” and not leaving the counting table until sunset.As her convoy arrived in the city center around 3:30 p.m., BJP supporters erupted in chants of “thief, thief” and “go back”, turning the stretch of road into a melting pot of hostility. Adhikari arrived around the same time. TMC general secretary and Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee also reached the spot and was forced to leave after some BJP supporters allegedly spat in his direction and abused him.ALSO READ |‘Immoral, illegal’: Mamata Banerjee accuses BJP of ‘looting’ over 100 seats; vows to ‘bounce back’Mamata stayed at the center until 8pm, when she was escorted out by central troops. When she came out, she repeated the allegation of being “attacked” and claimed that the BJP had “robbed over 100 seats”. However, she put on a brave face and vowed that TMC would return to office.There was silence at the TMC office. “We have nothing to say,” one worker said, slowly removing the party emblem from his shirt.
