BENGAL SHOWERS ‘MAMTA’ ON ‘DIDI’

Mamata Banerjee’s long march to “liberate” Bengal from the world’s longest democratically elected communist was not an easy task, yet her tiresome trudge on the political trail finally bear fruits.

On May 13, Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress ruined the 34-year hegemony of the Left Front in the state . Riding a wave of change in a state where Left ideology ruled the roost for over three decades, Banerjee along with allies Congress and SUCI gave a severe trashing to the Left Front.

Riding the waves of anger and aspiration, Mamata crashed into all Left bastions -village, town and city; Muslim and Hindu; north and south, eroding the edifice the comrades had so carefully built and reinforced year after year since 1977.

The TMC-led alliance won 227 seats in a house of 294, the Left Front was reduced to 62 seats from the 235 it had won in the 2006 Assembly polls.

The CPM alone won just 41 seats, down from 176 it had won in 2006. The entire top brass of its government, including Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, was defeated. The TMC alone won 184 seats -over 80% of the seats it contested -while the Congress won 42 seats and it’s learnt that it TMC+ LF 227 62 will be part of the new government.

According to preliminary estimates, the Left Front’s vote share is likely to go down by another 7% from what it had got in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls when it came down to 43% from 50% in 2004.

The scale of the rout was comprehensive. Consider these: The Left Front was wiped out of four districts and its tally reduced to zero in Kolkata, Howrah, East Midnapore and Darjeeling. In Kolkata, all 11 seats were won by the Trinamool while in Howrah and East Midnapore and Darjeeling, the Left was battered.

In North Bengal, the Trinamool Congress came up with spectacular surprises. Of the 48 seats in the Left bastions of Coochbehar, Jalpaiguri, North and South Dinajpur and Malda, the TMC had only one in 2006. This time it bagged 16 and with the Congress, 31 of the 48 seats.Mamta, Railway Minister at the Centre, did not contest the elections.

Mr Partha Chatterjee, Leader of the Opposition, hogged the limelight by being the winner by the highest margin ~ 59,021 votes. He was followed by the Mayor, Mr Sovan Chatterjee (48,173 votes), Mr Sovandeb Chattopadhyay (49,894 votes) Mr Bratya Basu (31,497 votes), Mr Chiranjeet Chakraborty (40,211 votes), Mr Subrata Mukherjee (41,185 votes), Dr Manas Bhuniya (13,184) and Mr Abu Naser Khan Chowdhury (17,361 votes).

The two LF ministers who survived the rout were Mr Rezzak Mollah and Dr Suryakanta Mishra who won by a margin of 21,113 and 7,109 votes, respectively.