Bengal: Congress candidate Bayron Biswas leads in Sagardighi bypoll

Sagardighi: Congress candidate Bayron Biswas was leading in the Sagardighi assembly seat in West Bengal's Murshidabad district where the counting of votes was underway for a by-election, according to the Election Commission (EC).

Biswas, who enjoys the support of the Left, was leading by 515 votes over TMC candidate Debashish Banerjee after the first round of counting.

Biswas bagged 5,459 votes and Banerjee got 4,944 votes, while Dilip Saha of the BJP secured 2,142 votes If Biswas manages to win the by-election, also being seen as a prestige fight for state Congress president Adhir Chowdhury in his home district, it will be the party's first seat in this assembly, which has a strength of 294.

The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of state minister Subrata Saha in December last year. The TMC has been winning the seat since 2011, and it secured a margin of more than 50,000 votes in the 2021 assembly elections.