Opposition campaign impacted victory margin: Abhijit

Abjijit won the Jangipur Lok Sabha by-election by 2,536 votes defeating his nearest CPI-M rival Muzaffar Hussain. The Congress candidate polled 3,32,919 votes against the CPI-M nominee's 3,30,383 votes.

"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.

Congress MP and president of Murshidabad DCC, Adhir Chowdhury claimed, "TMC did not vote for us, rather it opposed us." His view was echoed by state Congress leaders including Abdul Mannan.

The Trinamool Congress had not put up candidate in the by-poll even after severing ties with the Congress.

Meanwhile, State Transport minister and TMC leader Madan Mitra said the charge of the Congress leaders was baseless. He said the Congress support base was weakening and challenged Chowdhury to resign as MP and contest against him.

Another Trinamool leader and state urban development minister Firhad Hakim said, "The Centre's anti-people policies and high-handedness of Adhir Chowdhury are behind the Congress' poor showing at Jangipur and TMC had nothing to do with it."