Kolkata, Apr 16 (PTI) CPI(M) candidate Saira Shah Halim, who emerged second in the Ballygunge assembly by-poll, Saturday said though the result spelt defeat for the Left Front in the hands of TMC's Babul Supriyo, was a silver lining for it as its vote share has gone up by over five times since the state poll in 2021.

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From just 5.61 per cent of the vote share in the prestigious seat in the 2021 election, the CPIM) notched up over 30 per cent in the by-poll pushing BJP to the third position.

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"The Left Front is very happy, because this is a ray of hope for them as the whole binary that was created between BJP and TMC has been shattered," she told PTI after the result for the seat was declared.

Supriyo defeated Halim, his nearest rival, by a margin of 20,228 votes.

Halim, a poet and an educator, said that CPI(M) has emerged as the main competitor of the Trinamool Congress and the narrative that had been crafted that TMC and BJP were the only competitors of each other has taken a blow after the Ballygunge seat result.

In the future elections the LF will emerge stronger, she asserted.

"I was expecting to win but the whole state machinery is with the ruling dispensation. They went out of the way to make him win," Halim said.

She claimed that the TMC was rattled by her candidature and the support she received from a section of the civil society.

The CPI(M) had last won the seat in 2001 and secured the third position behind TMC and BJP in the 2021 elections, which her husband Fuad Halim had contested.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)