I think the people would be a better judge of what I have done for them: Satabdi Roy

Actress-politician Satabdi Roy of TMC retained the Birbhum

Lok Sabha

seat this evening by defeating her nearest rival, Dudh Kumar Mondal of BJP, by 88924 votes . Speaking to Calcutta Times after the win, the actress, who registered a hat-trick with this win, said, “The fact that I’ve won this seat for the third time goes a long way to show how much faith the people of the constituency have in me. As for what I have done for the constituency in the past two terms, I think the people would be a better judge of that. And even this term, I plan to do more for them.”

Even exit polls had predicted that Satabdi, who was pitted against Dudh Kumar Mondal of the BJP and Rezaul Karim of CPM, was likely to retain the Birbhum seat. The 49-year-old actor-turned-politician had faced the toughest test in her decade-old political career contesting against BJP district chief Dudh Kumar Mondal. While exit polls predicted a surge in the BJP vote share, Roy, they had predicted, would be third-time lucky. And that’s exactly the way things happened.

Historically speaking, Birbhum has been a CPM bedrock since 1971 till Roy, a political debutant, upset pre-poll predictions to win it in 2009 defeating six-time CPM MP Ram Chandra Dome. Till 2014, CPM was her primary opponent.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, she had won in the seat by defeating the CPM candidate by a margin of 67,263 votes, while in 2009, she clinched the seat by defeating the CPM candidate by a margin of 61,519 votes.