Bengal,34 yrs later

It is an understatement to call it a defeat for the Left. The wave in favour of the Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance assumed the magnitude of a huge tsunami crashing into all Left bastions and destroying the edifice the comrades had built and reinforced year after year since 1977.

So when the results came in,the TMC-led alliance had won 226 seats in a house of 294. The Left Front was reduced to 63 seats from the 235 it had won in the 2006 state assembly polls. The CPM alone won only 41 seats down from 176 it had won in 2006,almost all its heavyweights defeated,including Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

The TMC alone won 185 seats,having surpassed the magic figure of 148,required for a simple majority in the state Assembly. The Congress won 41 seats and it’s learnt that it 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 they had got in 2009 Lok Sabha polls when they came down to 43% from 50% in 2004. This time the Left Front’s combined vote share is likely to reduce to the lowest ever.

It’s been a vote of vengeance and defiance against the Left. It was also a vote for Banerjee’s slogan for a Bengal freed from the “clutch of the Communists.” This was a slogan she first came up with almost 25 years ago and then painstakingly devoted herself to seeing it to fruition. No wonder,among her supporters today,the most common words had references of history: “the second freedom struggle” and “the end of tyranny and autocracy.” The scale of the rout was comprehensive. Consider these:

* The Left Front was wiped out of four districts completely and their tally reduced to zero in Kolkata,Howrah,East Midnapore and Darjeeling.

* In Kolkata,all 11 seats were won by Trinamool Congress while in Howrah and East Midnapore and Darjeeling,the Left was whitewashed.

* She breached the urban-rural,the South bengal-North Bengal divide and penetrated deep into new regions like the Junglemahal.

* The geographical spread of Trinamool Congress,so far only restricted to Kolkata and its surrounding districts,now covers the entire state.

Even before the final results were declared,Buddhadeb arrived at Raj Bhavan around 1 pm and handed over his resignation to the Governor. Earlier,at the CPM’s party office at Alimuddin Street,he refused to talk to the media.

Banerjee,the Chief Minister in waiting,is expected to meet the Governor in the evening and stake her claim for government formation. As her victory looked certain,she came out of her home and promised “a new beginning” in Bengal. “I dedicate my vicory to the people. Bengal is free now,it has won a second freedom struggle. I bow my head to the people in gratitude and promise you that I will give you good governance…It is a victory of democracy,of Ma,Maati and Manush. It is the people’s verdict,” she said,adding that she had received congratulatory calls from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi.

The Chief Minister lost in Jadavpur by a stunning margin of over 16,000 votes — a segment that the Left had won uninterrupted for 34 years. Along with him lost Asim Dasgupta,Finance Minister; Industries Minister Nirupam Sen; Municipal Affairs Minister Ashok Bhattacharjee; Housing Minister Gautam Deb who had been projected by the party as the emerging face of the Left. But this was just scratching the surface.

As many as 26 ministers of the Left Front government were defeated. Only eight could manage to hold their fort. In fact,the CPM and the Left as a whole was decimated so badly that the opposition will be virtually become leaderless now. Three of the four CPM state secretariat members who were in the contest — Buddhadeb,Nirupam Sen and Gautam Deb — lost. The first two are also CPM central committee and Politburo members.