Kolkata:
Abjijit Mukherjee, son of President Pranab Mukherjee and Congress candidate has won the Jangipur Lok Sabha by-election. But what will serve as a wake-up call for the Congress, he won the seat by just 2,536 votes. This despite, the Trinamool Congress not putting up a candidate against him. In 2009, Pranab Mukherjee had won the seat by a huge margin of over 1.28 lakh votes.
Abhijit polled 3,32,919 votes, while his nearest CPI(M) rival Muzaffar Hussain bagged 3,30,383 votes, Election Commission sources said.
BJP candidate, Sudhangshu Biswas, who came third, received 85,867 votes. Two independent candidates Raisuddin and Tahedul Islam polled 41,620 and 24,691 votes respectively.
The by-election was held on October 10 as the seat had fallen vacant after Pranab Mukherjee was elevated to the highest office of the country.
Opposition campaign against FDI and price rise had resulted in the drop in the Congress' victory margin among other factors, party candidate and President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit Mukherjee said today.
"To some extent price rise and the FDI had an impact," Abhijit told a Bengali TV channel reacting to the low margin of his win against his nearest CPI(M) rival in contrast to Pranab Mukherjee's over 1.28 lakh votes in the 2009 general elections.
He said that he had informed his father about his win and his reaction was "good".
Without naming any party, Abhijit said the votes of the BJP and a particular party had helped the CPI(M) candidate Muzaffar Hussain to notch up a big margin.
A lesser turnout of voters compared to the 2009 Lok Sabha election also contributed to the drop in the Congress' victory margin, he said.
On the work done by his father in the constituency, Abhijit said, "My father has done a lot for the constituency including solving the problem of erosion by the Ganga, a major problem in Murshidabad district, but there is no limit to the expectations of the people."
He said that he had campaigned in the constituency for only 19 days which was not adequate to reach all the voters.