Kolkata, May 19 (IANS) West Bengal Industry and Finance Minister and Trinamool Congress nominee Amit Mitra retained the Khardaha seat in North 24 Parganas district wining by a margin of 21,200 votes.
Mitra polled 83,688 votes to thump Congress-backed CPI-M candidate and former state finance minister Asim Dasgupta who bagged 62,488 votes.
In his debut poll battle five years ago, Mitra, a former secretary general of industry chamber FICCI, had wrested Khardaha from Dasgupta, a noted economist, with a 26,000-plus margin.
"People realised the alliance was opportunistic. Congress workers in my constituency hesitated to cast their votes in favour of the Left. Congress workers know there were 55,000 incidents of political murder took place between 1977 to 2009," said Mitra as the Trinamool headed towards a landslide bagging over 200 of the 294 assembly seats.
Starting as the finance and excise minister in Mamata Banerjee's cabinet, Mitra had seen several plum ministries and departments added to his portfolio -- commerce and industry, public enterprise, industrial reconstruction, IT and electronics. He is expected to hold multiple portfolios in the new government which is to be sworn in on May 27.
