KOLKATA: In at least 82 assembly seats in Bengal, the candidate in the third position secured more votes than the winning margin, indicating that a sharp vote split between the second- and third-place holders took the winning candidate past the post.For example, Congress candidate Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury lost the Behrampore seat to BJP by 17,548 votes. The Trinamool nominee, who came third, secured 49,586 votes, nearly three times the winning margin, exemplifying how BJP benefited from the split in votes between Congress and Trinamool.

Several heavyweight Trinamool candidates, too, lost because of a similar vote split. And, in most cases, CPM played the spoilsport.For instance, Chandrima Bhattacharya would have most likely won Dum Dum North for Trinamool had CPM not fetched 38,428 votes to finish third. BJP won the seat by 26,404 votes.Aroop Biswas would have easily defeated BJP's Papiya Adhikari in Tollyginge had CPM not taken away 30,335 votes. BJP managed to win here by 6,013 votes. Likewise, Trinamool lost Jadavpur to BJP by 27,716 votes. CPM's Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya finished third here with 41,148 votes.

In Cossipore-Belgachia, Trinamool's Atin Ghosh lost to BJP's Ritesh Tiwary by 1,651 votes. CPM polled 11,151 votes here to finish third. In Behala West, Trinamool's Ratna Chatterjee lost to BJP's Indranil Khan by 24,699 votes. CPM finished third with 30,676 votes.In Uttarpara, Trinamool's Shirshanya Bandyopadhyay lost to BJP's Dipanjan Chakraborty by 8,685 votes. CPM was at the third place with 17,136 votes.

In Chandannagar, Trinamool's Indranil Sen lost to BJP's Deepanjan Kumar Guha by 13,441 votes. CPM again finished third with 22,760 votes.For Trinamool, the vote split worked in its favour in Kamarhati, where Madan Mitra defeated the BJP candidate by 5,643 votes because CPM secured third place by polling 20,203 votes.Similarly, in Domkal, the only seat that CPM won, Congress fetched 30,453 votes to finish third, allowing the Left party to defeat BJP by 16,296 votes. In Noapara, BJP's Arjun Singh won with a margin of 17,656, while CPM came in third position with 17,696 votes. In Darjeeling, BJP won by only 6,057 votes, while an independent, who stood third, secured 48,635 votes.