Buddha 2nd sitting WB CM to taste election defeat

Kolkata: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is the second sitting chief minister in West Bengal after late Prafulla Chandra Sen to bow out of office after accepting electoral defeat in the state.

Sen, a veteran Congressman and chief minister from July 8, 1962 to March 15, 1967, was defeated by his one-time ministerial colleague Ajay Mukherjee of Bangla Congress at Arambagh assembly constituency in the fourth general election in 1967 by only 881 votes.

In the elections, Congress lost power in the state, paving way for the first United Front government led by Ajay Mukherjee.

In the just-concluded assembly elections, Bhattacharjee of the CPI-M received a severe drubbing from a former chief secretary Manish Gupta of the Trinamool Congress at his Jadavpur constituency and lost the seat he held since 1987 by a wide margin of 16,684 votes.