5 IPS officers win on Trinamool tickets

All the five former Indian Police Service officers fielded by the Trinamool Congress won comfortably, while TC nominee and former chief secretary Manish Gupta humbled Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, his one time boss.

Gupta, who was chief secretary in 1998 during the tenure of Jyoti Basu and retired in 2001 serving one year under Bhattacharjee, defeated his former boss from the left bastion of Jadavpur by over 16,000 votes.

Gupta polled 96,625 votes and Bhattacharjee 80,898. Former Additional Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation Upen Biswas, who shot to the limelight for investigating the Bihar fodder scam and arresting Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, won the Bagda seat in Nadia district defeating his nearest All India Forward Bloc opponent M K Sikdar by over 20,000 votes.

Another former IPS officer Rachhpal Singh, who as Inspector General (Presidency Range) had lodged an first information report against Mamata Banerjee when she was the Youth Congress president, for violence at a rally in 1994, won the Tarakeshwar seat in Hooghly district defeating Communist party of India-Marxist candidate Pratim Chatterjee by over 25,000 votes.

Former additional director general of police and TC candidate from Bally seat in Howrah district Sultan Singh defeated his nearest CPI-M rival Kanika Ganguly by over 5,000 votes.

Former IPS officer H A Safwi won the Uluberia Purba seat in Howrah district. Safwi got 68,975 votes while his opponent Mohan Mondal secured 49,391.

A M Joardar, another ex-IPS officer defeated his CPI-M rival S Ghosh from the Krishnagar North by over 35,000 votes. Besides the former IPS officers, TC had fielded former Calcutta High Court Judge N A Chowdhury.

He won from the Muraroi seat defeating his nearest CPI-M rival Kamre Elahi by over 5,000 votes.