Left’s red fort in West Bengal falls

The red fort in West Bengal crumbled yesterday as the poll results came out there.
After being in power in the state for 32 years without a break, ruling Left Front suffered a severe drubbing at the hands of the alliance of Trinamool Congress and Congress, which swept the Lok Sabha elections.
Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance secured 25 of the 42 seats in the state, 19 of them going to Trinamool and 6 to Congress.
Trinamool’s left ally Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) won one, while their rival BJP also got one seat.
Left Front is way behind Trinamool-Congress alliance as it won only 15 seats, 9 of which went to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI (M)].
Prominent winners included senior Congress leader and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee from Jangipur, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee (Kolkata
South), CPI (M)’s Basudeb Acharya (Bankura), and Trinamool’s industrialist Dinesh Trivedi (Barrackpur).
Mukherjee told reporters that the alliance between Trinamool and Congress paid rich dividends to both parties in the elections.
His party colleague Pradip Bhattacharya said the result in West Bengal showed people craved for a change of government in the state.
Mamata demanded early assembly polls in the state, which are otherwise due in two years, alleging that the Lok Sabha election result showed people’s no-confidence in CPI (M)-led Left Front.
The Left Front, which came to power for the first time in West Bengal in 1977, since then won largely because of ineffective and a divided opposition. But the alliance between Trinamool and Congress showed the gains from unity in opposition ranks.
What was significant that Trinamool-Congress alliance succeeded in making inroads into the left’s hold among rural voters.
Assam went against the national trend with Congress suffering significant losses in the state, but BJP and Assam United Democratic Front (AUDF), a Muslim outfit, making considerable gains.
The most significant loss for Congress, which had won nine of the 14 seats in the last Lok Sabha polls in 2004, was the defeat of Federal Minister Santosh Mohan Dev from Silchar who finished a poor third behind BJP’s Kabindra Purukayastha and AUDF president Badruddin Ajmal.
Another union minister Bijoy Krishna Handique retained the Jorhat seat for the sixth term defeating BJP’s Kamakhya Prasad by 71,914 votes.
Another win for Congress was the Kaliabor seat where Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s brother Dip Gogoi retained it for the third consecutive term defeating AGP’s Gunin Hazarika by 1,50,442 votes.
Congress suffered a major blow when it lost the prestigious Gauhati seat to BJP whose former Union Minister Bijoya Chakraborty defeated state MLA Capt Robin Bordoloi.
In Tripura, both the Lok Sabha seats went in favour of ruling CPI (M) whose sitting members of parliament Bajuban Reang, who had won Lok Sabha elections from East Tripura constituency six times earlier, defeated his nearest Congress rival Diba Chandra Hrankhawl this time by a margin of 2,95,581 votes, and Khagen Das won for the third consecutive time from West Tripura Lok Sabha constituency defeating his nearest Congress rival Sudip Roy Burman by a margin of 2,46,898 votes.
East Tripura, tribal reserve constituency is the citadel of CPI (M), which has returned its candidates to the parliament 11 times out of 15.
West Tripura constituency too is a strong hold of communists, which returned marxist candidates to the parliament eight times out of 15 elections held so far.

Courtesy of The Daily Star