New BJP MLAs elected in Nandigram, Rejinagar bypolls to take oath today

Kolkata, Oct 28 (IANS) Hasirani Rath and Sakharav Sarkar, the two newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates in the bypolls to the Nandigram Assembly Constituency in East Midnapore district and the Rejinagar seat in Murshidabad district in West Bengal earlier this month, will take oaths on Wednesday.

The oath ceremony of Rath and Sarkar will be administered by the Speaker of the House, Rathindra Bose, in the state Assembly. The Chief Minister, Suvendu Adhikari, will be present in the House on Wednesday to witness the event before leaving for the state secretariat of Nabanna to chair a cabinet meeting.

The bypolls to Nandigram and Rejinagar were conducted on October 6, and the results were declared on October 9. With BJP candidates getting elected from both Assembly constituencies, the strength of the party in the 294-seat West Bengal Assembly has increased to 209.

While Hasirani Ratha got elected from Nandigram by a record margin of 1,22,753 votes, Sarkar got elected from Rejinagar by a margin of 75,816 votes. The massive victory margin of Sarkar took many political observers by surprise, considering that minority voters constitute over 65 per cent of the total voters in Rejinagar.

However, the Chief Minister then claimed that the results of Nandigram and Rejinagar proved that minority voters had started gaining faith in the BJP, considering the fruits of development work they are enjoying in the first five months of the new BJP-ruled regime in the state.

He also said the minority voters in West Bengal have also started realising that the previous ruling forces just misled them by projecting the BJP as a communal force instead of concentrating on the overall development of the minority community.

He also said that a larger number of women voters from the minority community, both in Rejinagar and Nandigram, who were immensely benefited from the Annapurna Yojana scheme, had voted in favour of the BJP along with their family members in the bypolls for the two Assembly constituencies.

Rath is the mother of Late Chandranath Rath, the former executive assistant of Suvendu Adhikari, who was shot dead on the streets of Madhyamgram in North 24 Parganas district on the evening of May 6.

–IANS

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