A day after the Trinamool stormed back to power with 211 seats in the 294-member assembly, the victorious members congregated at Banerjee’s residence at city’s Kalighat where she was elected as the leader of the party.
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But at the same time he alleged that a reign of terror was unleashed on Left cadres in West Bengal.
The 61-year-old feisty leader, who had single-handedly wrecked the communist bastion in West Bengal in 2011 ousting Left Front’s uninterrupted 34-year-old rule, was unfazed by the coming together of Left parties and their once bitter rival Congress ahead of the Assembly polls. I am there in a war.
“…it is your (of reporters) right to interpret it in the way you want to. The people have rejected the UDF government, its misrule and corruption”.
The North East, despite some of the states being Christian-majority ones, holds a lot of prospect for the BJP.
“We respect the verdict of the people of West Bengal”, party general secretary Sitaram Yechury told the media here.
While on the other Mamata Banerjee’s win was totally a one-sided victory with not much of chance to other parties.
Popular Bangla band singer Soumitra Roy, who had unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha polls for the Trinamool, again let down the party in the Chanchal seat. The West Bengal gamble, struck primarily to avert an electoral washout, has now turned out be an embarrassment for the party. “If we can’t check the further erosion of our vote bank and support base then we are ought to face serious questions over the very existence of CPI(M) and Left in Bengal”. In Kerala, it could open its account due to similar assistance from Congress-led UDF there.
Although a couple of exit polls had indicated a landslide victory for the Trinamul Congress, party insiders had confessed in private that they were not expecting a big win because of a number of developments in the run-up to the polls. In 2014, the Trinamool got around 39% of the vote share; add the CPM’s and the Congress’s individual vote shares and you would arrive at the same figure of around 39%. “The Congress, LF vote transfer was achieved”.
“In 2011, the Left Front had lost the polls but in 2016 the Left ideology has lost even before the results were announced”.
The Congress, however, did better than its Left allies winning 29 seats and was leading in 15 seats.
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With her “phenomenal victory”, Mamata Didi has proved that there is no one stopping her in West Bengal at the moment even as she had signalled her readiness to play a role at the national level. “With this our responsibility has increased and we will work accordingly by taking lessons from our mistakes”.
