On Sunday, the leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly & BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari said that the BJP lost because of several leaders’ overconfidence that the party would get over 170 seats.

There was a party meeting held in Chandipur area of Purba Medinipur district. In that meeting, Mr Adhikari said that this smugness and overconfidence led to lack of understanding of the emerging ground situation.

The TMC turncoat said, “As we did well in the first two poll phases in these parts of assembly segments, many of our leaders became smug and overconfident. They started believing that the BJP will secure 170-180 seats in the elections, but they did not do the groundwork. This cost us dearly.”

He said that continuing work at the ground level was equally important as setting up targets, which was realistic but needed hard work.

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Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh reacted to Mr Adhikari’s claims. He said, “Suvendu has conveniently forgotten the slew of social welfare projects and a spree of development by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and the mandate against BJP heavyweights’ sustained campaign against the CM and TMC.”

Mr Ghosh is the state general secretary of Trinamool congress. He said, “The BJP was living in a fool’s paradise as many of their leaders predicted that the saffron camp will cross 200 seats. Why he is finding fault with others? Did not Suvendu also boast repeatedly that his party will get 180 seats at least? Actually, they do not know the pulse of Bengal, Trinamool does.”

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Few days back Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said that the Election Commission of India (ECI) has been informed that her government was ready for bypolls to seven Assembly constituencies and two Rajya Sabha seats.

A six-member delegation of TMC MPs met ECI in Delhi, demanding that bypolls be held at the earliest on account of fewer Covid-19 cases. The comments came on a day after this meeting.

Mamata Banerjee told media at the state secretariat, “ECI had asked us if we could conduct by-elections to the Rajya Sabha. We told them that we were ready for Rajya Sabha elections and the seven Assembly seats.” She further said that the Covid-19 situation in West Bengal was under control and elections could be held.

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In order to continue as the Chief Minister, the TMC supremo needs to get elected as an MLA by November 5. Ms Banerjee is likely to contest from Bhabanipur seat which has been left vacant by her party leader and state minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay.