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ISSUES '98
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CHAT

State:	West Bengal
Constituency:	Malda
Total Votes Polled:	876253
Winner: INC	Abul Barkat Ataul G K Choudhury	417427
Runner Up: CPM	Sailen Sarkar	327605
Margin: 89822 (10.50%)

The Congress managed to win the seat till 1967, after which it fell into CPI-M hands which held on till 1977. In 1980 the constituency voted for Abul Barkat Ataul Ghani Khan Chowdhury of the Congress, and has done so since then with amazing regularity. In 1996, Chowdhury, former Union railway minister, defeated the CPI-M's Sailen Sarkar by 90,000 votes, the BJP's Binay Sarkar coming third bagging 10.43 % of the vote.