Trinamool Congress emerged victorious as some of the party candidates won by hefty margins, as it became clear that the alliance formed by Congress and CPI-M failed to garner support.
The failure of the Left-Congress alliance to make an impact and Mamata Banerjee's emphasis on development helped the Trinamool Congress script a stunning victory in Assembly polls in West Bengal, winning 211 of the 294 seats, an improvement over its 2011 tally of 184 seats.
TMC's performance was all the more creditable as it contested the election on its own, unlike in 2011 when it had allied with the Congress. An analysis of the results indicate that TMC vote percentage also increased compared to the 2011 Assembly polls and the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
TMC secured 44.9% of the total votes polled, compared to 39% in 2011 and 39.03% in 2014. Political observers noted that the TMC supremo achieved the stunning victory despite several odds stacked against her - Saradha scam, the Narada sting expose and the Vivekananda flyover collapse. Her slogan for development and various schemes for the common people caught the imagination of the voters.
Referring to the charges of corruption against her party, Banerjee had yesterday dubbed it as "propaganda by a section of media." "There is no corruption in Bengal. Bengal is a corruption-free state. The people have rejected the allegation," she had asserted.
On the other hand, the CPI(M)-led Left Front and Congress which had formed an alliance to fight the TMC have failed to put up a creditable show. CPI-M's vote percentage fell to 19.7% this time from 29.58% in 2011 Assembly election. In 2014 Lok Sabha poll, the party had captured nearly 23% vote.
The CPI-M this time won only 26 seats while its other Left Front constituents RSP won 3 seats, Forward Bloc-2 and CPI-1. The combined vote share of the Left Front was also reduced to nearly 24% from 41% in 2011. The Left Front had won 62 seats in 2011 Assembly polls, of which CPI(M) had won 40.
Mamata Banerjee had dubbed the coming together of CPI-M and Congress as the "greatest blunder" and said the people had rejected it.
The Congress, however, benefited from the alliance and bettered its vote percentage this time to 12.3, compared to 9.09% in 2011, when it had contested in alliance with TMC. In 2014 Lok Sabha poll, Congress's vote share in the state was around 9.6%.
Congress- CPI-M alliance rejected by voters
Poll analysts said it appeared that the people rejected the alliance between the former rivals because "it had come together with a single agenda of defeating the TMC".
The leadership of the Congress and the the CPI-M dubbed it as a "people's alliance", but the results indicated that although there was transfer of votes from the Left to the Congress, the same was not true in case of Congress voters, they said.
The analysts said it was clear from the results in north Bengal where the Congress had a substantial vote bank. The TMC bagged eight of the nine seats in Cooch Behar, four of five seats in Alipurduar and six of the seven seats in Jalpaiguri in north Bengal. On whether the much-touted Left-Congress alliance has failed, CPI-M state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra said, "I do not think so. To understand the reason, we need to do a deep assessment of the results".
RSP, a Left Front partner, was forthcoming in admitting that the people rejected the alliance. "The CPI-M had gone overboard on the alliance with the Congress, even at the cost of Left partners. They had forgotten their old friends. The result shows that people have not accepted this alliance," RSP state secretary Kshiti Goswami said.
Reacting to the alliance's poor performance, state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, "A defeat is a defeat. I don't want to give any excuse for it. I don't want to go into any blame game. The people believed it is better to vote for Mamata Banerjee."
Although many poll experts had opined that any erosion of BJP's vote share which had gone upto nearly 17% in 2014 Lok Sabha election, would benefit the Left-Congress alliance, the results indicated otherwise. The BJP's vote percentage had come down from nearly 17% in 2014 to 10.2% this time but it did not benefit the alliance in a significant way. On the other hand, TMC's vote percentage had gone up by nearly 6%.
Notwithstanding the erosion in its vote share compared to 2014 Lok Sabha election, the BJP's performance was encouraging as the party managed to win three seats for the first time in the state assembly. Earlier, the BJP had won twice in by-poll. Compared to 2011 Assembly election when the BJP had secured 4.06% votes, the party this time polled 10.2% voted barely 2% less than Congress.
A Tough Fight
As Trinamool Congress swept West Bengal assembly polls with two-third majority, some party candidates won by a hefty margin of over a lakh votes while others managed with even less than 500. West Bengal Irrigation Minister Rajib Banerjee has the distinction of the highest winning margin in this election. He won by a whopping margin of 107,701 votes against his nearest rival - Protima Dutta, an independent candidate.
At Keshpur, TMC's Seuli Saha performed wonders too defeating CPI-M candidate Rameswar Doloi by a hefty margin of 101,151 votes.
For Congress, the credit of winning by the largest margin went to Manoj Chakraborty who polled 92,273 votes more than TMC nominee Sujata Banerjee in Baharampur seat.
TMC MP Suvendu Adhikari won by a convincing margin of 81,230 votes against his nearest Left Front rival Abdul Kabir Seikh in East Midnapore's Nandigram seat, which is known for its anti-land acquisition movement. Few other party leaders who scored big victories with over 50,000 margin were Ashis Chakraborty from Garbeta, Asima Patra from Dhanekhali and minister Sukumar Hansda in left wing extremism affected Jhargram.
There were others who won with very narrow margin. Abdur Rahaman of TMC escaped biting the dust by just 280 votes in Murarai seat and party's Nepal Ghorui managed to defeat Left leader by a margin of only 448 votes. TMC candidates too got defeated by wafer thin margins. In Basirhat north seat, A T M Abdullah was beaten by only 492 votes by CPI-M's Rafikul Islam Mondal.
Bengali filmstar Soham Chakraborty was defeated by Sujit Chakraborty of CPI-M by a margin of 616 votes. CPI leader Ashok Kumar Dinda (Tamluk seat), TMC's Sajal Panja (Monteswar) and Rabindranath Chatterjee (Katwa) and Congress candidate Tushar Kanti Bhattacharya (Bishnupur) too won by less than 1,000 votes
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