EPS to Babul Supriyo – Prominent Candidates Who Won & Lost Polls

After more than a month of the electoral process, results for the Assembly elections in the four states and one Union Territory was announced on Sunday, 2 May.

While the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) are inching closer to victory in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) is all set to return to power in Kerala. In Assam, the BJP-led NDA alliance is expected to come to power.

Who are the prominent winners and losers in the states? Here’s a look, as per latest trends.

Tamil Nadu

• Incumbent Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Palaniswami has emerged victorious yet again in his home constituency of Edappadi and defeated DMK's T Sampath Kumar.
• Kushboo Sundar, the celebrity entrant into Tamil Nadu for BJP, lost to DMK’s Dr Ezhilan in Thousand Lights constituency in Chennai.
• DMK supremo MK Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi Stalin, won the Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni seat with a good margin.
• Five-time MLA and senior All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) minister D Jayakumar, ministers Benjamin, R Pandiarajan, C Ve Shanmugham, Rajendra Bhalaji, KC Veeramani, Vellamandi Natarajan lost their sitting seats.
• TTV Dhinakaran of Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) lost against Kadambur Raju of AIADMK.
• Actor and President of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) Kamal Haasan lost in the Coimbatore (South) in a neck-to-neck contest to BJP’s Vanathi Srinivasan.
• BJP’s Tamil Nadu President L Murugan lost out a toughly fought battle in Dharmapuram to DMK’s N Kayalvizhi by 812 votes.
• BJP’s H Raja lost by a margin of almost 20,000 votes while Annamalai lost by a margin of 24,300 votes.

West Bengal

• Sitting MP and BJP leader Babul Supriyo lost the high-stake Tollygunge Assembly battle to TMC heavyweight and PWD Minister Aroop Biswas.
• Likewise, another sitting MP and BJP leader Swapan Dasgupta lost the Tarakeswar constituency to TMC’s Ramendu Sinharay.
• Former Mayor and TMC Cabinet Minister of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs Firhad Hakim registered a huge victory in Kolkata Port constituency, against Congress’ Md Mukhtar.
• Manoj Tiwary of TMC won against BJP's Rathin Chakrabarty.
• Locket Chatterjee, faced defeat in Chinsurah. She has been instrumental in building the BJP's election machinery from ground up in the Trinamool Congress (TMC) bastion. She forayed into politics with the TMC before severing ties in 2015 and joining the BJP.
• BJP’s Nisith Pramanik won the Dinhata seat in Cooch Behar defeating TMC candidate Udayan Guha by 69 votes.

Kerala

• KK Shailaja, who has earned praise in her role as Kerala's Health Minister for handling the COVID pandemic and Nipah outbreak, scored a big win from Mattannur, her hometown and a CPI(M) stronghold.
• The BJP saw a major defeat in Palakkad after ‘Metro man’ E Sreedharan, one of the party’s most recognised faces, lost the race to Shafi Parambil by a margin of 3,000 votes.
• LDF’s V Sivankutty won Nemom seat by defeating Kummanam Rajasekharan, BJP’s only sitting MLA in Kerala by 5,000 votes.
• What came as a shocker for Congress in Kerala was the diminishing lead of former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in his home turf Puthupally, where he had contested from for the past 50 years.

Assam

• Assam Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma is likely to win Jalukbari constituency by a margin of over one lakh votes.
• Jailed activist and prominent peasant leader Akhil Gogoi is leading from the Sibsagar constituency against BJP's Surabhi Rajkonwar.
• Congress’ Rekibuddin Ahmed is likely to win the Chaygaon constituency by a margin of over 33,700 votes.