West Bengal's ruling Left Front has retained the Balagarh assembly seat in a by-election held four days ago but with a reduced victory margin.
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) candidate Bhuban Pramanik secured 60,101 votes, defeating the Trinamul Congress by over 8,000 votes. The CPI-M margin of victory in the 2006 assembly elections was about 18,000 votes.
Gautam Gupta has more on the story.