It is the people who are winners: Mamata

More than 20 ministers, including Chief Minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and fellow CPI(M) politburo member and Industries Minister Mr Nirupam Sen lost in the West Bengal Assembly elections that saw the exit of the CPI(M)-led Left Front's after a record seven consecutive terms in power.

The Union Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo, Ms Mamata Banerjee, will become the first woman Chief Minister of the State.

The Trinamool-Congress combine secured around 227 of the total 294 seats in the State, while the Left Front could manage only around 61, with five seats going to others (as per the latest trend). CPI(M)'s own tally which was 176 in the 2006 elections, was only … Trinamool alone won the majority, winning around 186 seats, while the Congress won 41.

Ms Banerjee dedicated her victory to “Ma, Maati, Manush” (the Trinamool slogan meaning Mother, Earth and People) and said, “People have been waiting for 35 years for this. It is like a freedom struggle… It is the people who are the winners here.”

Among the bigger names of the CPI(M) that fell include, State Finance Minister, Mr Asim Dasgupta, the Housing Minister, Mr Gautam Deb, the Urban Development Minister, Mr Ashok Bhattacharya, and the IT Minister, Mr Debesh Das. It has been a route for the Left, as even in its bastions of Bardhaman, Birbhum, Bankura, Purulia and Pashchim Medinipur, the Trinamool-Congress combine managed to win the majority of the seats. The Left could not win any of the 11 seats in Kolkata either.

Addressing a press conference once the trend became clear, the CPI(M) State Secretary and Left Front Chairman, Mr Biman Bose, said, “The results of the elections are completely unexpected for all of us. We will closely scrutinize and analyse what went wrong, and learn from our mistakes… We humbly accept the people's verdict.”

The Left Front's loss, though shocking in its enormity, was not unexpected. From the 2008 Panchayat elections, the Left has been losing ground to Trinamool. Its percentage of votes polled has been on the decline since the 2006 Assembly election. From 50.18 per cent in the 2006 Assembly elections, it dropped alarmingly to 43.3 per cent in the 2009 Lok Sabha election.

It is believed to have plummeted further in this election. On the other hand, the TMC's political resurgence, through its violent agitations over land acquisition in Nandigram and Singur and its alliance with the Congress, increased the percentage share of votes polled to 45.96 per cent (in 2009).

When the Trinamool and the Congress forged an alliance along with the SUCI to take on the Left in the 2009 General elections, it won 26 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the State. The Left could win only 15 as against 35 it won in 2005.

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