By IANS,
Kolkata : The Communist Party of India (CPI) Sunday asked the Congress to heed the warning from the people in view of its below-par performance in the recent Lok Sabha by-polls in West Bengal and Uttarakhand.
“The Congress should heed the warning from the electorate. The voters have not accepted the anti-people decisions unleashed by the UPA government recently,” CPI general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy said here Sunday.
Congress candidate Abhijit Mukherjee scraped through by only 2,536 votes in West Bengal’s Jangipur constituency – from where his father and now president, Pranab Mukherjee triumphed by over 1.28 lakh votes in 2009.
In Uttarakhand’s Tehri, the Congress nominee and chief minister Vijay Bahuguna’s son Saket lost by over 18,000 votes to Bharatiya Janata Party’s Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah. The seat was vacated by Vijay Bahuguna when he became the chief minister.
However, Reddy expressed concern over the BJP increasing its vote share at Jangipur.
“This is certainly not a good signal,” he said.
The CPI chief, however, opined that a section of Trinamool Congress supporters could have rooted for the BJP as their party had not put up a candidate at Jangipur.