Elections 98

State:	West Bengal
Constituency:	Purulia
Total Votes Polled:	747609
Winner: FBL	Bir Singh Mahato	376313
Runner Up: INC	Nepal Mahata	219176
Margin: 157137 (42%)

Elections 96

State:	West Bengal
Constituency:	Purulia
Total Votes Polled:	765833
Winner: FBL	Bir Singh Mahato	375559
Runner Up: INC	Gobinda Mukherjee	265689
Margin: 109870 (14.93%)

Since 1977, the Forward Bloc has been winning from here, with C Mahata having a straight run till the 1991 election. In 1996 his kin Birsingh Mahata was in the fray, and he defeated the Congress's Gobinda Mukherjee by 110,000 votes.