Elections 98

State:	West Bengal
Constituency:	Diamond Harbour
Total Votes Polled:	896052
Winner: CPM	Samik Lahiri	405048
Runner Up: WBTC	Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar	344092
Margin: 60956 (15%)

Elections 96

State:	West Bengal
Constituency:	Diamond Harbour
Total Votes Polled:	889735
Winner: CPM	Samik Lahiri	411844
Runner Up: INC	Amjad Ali Sardar	389318
Margin: 22526 (2.59%)

The only time this constituency has voted for the Congress was in 1962, courtesy Sudhanshu B Das. The next round saw the election of Jyotirmoy Basu, the CPI-M legend, whose parliamentary panache Indira Gandhi dreaded. After his death, Amal Datta -- Chief Minister Jyoti Basu's nephew -- retained the seat for the CPI-M till 1991. In 1996, Samik Lahiri kept up the good work, defeating the Congress's Amjad Ali Sardar by 22,000 votes.