CPM finds solace in vote share

In the same breath,he added that the municipality polls were only an urban exercise with only 17 per cent of the total electorate taking part and,therefore,cannot be seen as the mood of the state.

Compared to the 2009 Lok Sabha elections,there is a marginal improvement in the votes polled by the Left Front. From analysing the results,what we can say is that trend against the Left Front has not been reversed but definitely it has been arrested, he said.

Though stock phrases like introspection and analysis are being tossed around,many were of the view that the slide was slowly becoming irreversible.

It is a fact that in the municipal elections,the Left Front has lost. In an election somebody wins and somebody loses. For 30 years we have been winning, Yechury said.

On Tuesday,he had claimed that the results of the elections would surprise everyone and debunked the theory that the CPM was steadily losing ground.

Putting up a brave front,Yechury also said that Assembly elections were a different ball game and expressed confidence that the CPM would regain lost ground in the next one year. In municipality elections,only 17 per cent of the electorate has participated. To call it a pan-Bengal exercise is wrong. It is only urban Bengal which took part. There is no comparison among municipality,Lok Sabha and assembly elections, he said.

He also rejected Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjees demand for early Assembly elections,saying the result of the Municipality polls where 83 per cent of the electorate did not participate cannot be in any way a reason to prepone the Assembly elections.

A grim-faced Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee kept mum when asked about the poll disaster and whether he would recommend dissolution of the Assembly and go for early polls.

It was left to Minister for commerce and industries,Nirupam Sen to respond to queries. Sen,who showed every sign of a vanquished soldier,admitted that a large section of people who used to vote for the Left have switched camp.

I dont think our policies were wrong,he said. If you take up the policy for development and for industrialisation will it be wrong? But what do you do if people are not convinced and go the way the opposition wants them to go?

In a philosophical mood,Sen added: In fact what we see is that development does not bring you votes. There are ample examples in history. Winston Churchill brought victory for England in the Second World War but he lost the elections held after he war.

He also gave it away that the days of the Left were over. Aar ki,onek din to holo Well,we have been in power for a long time. Lets see what happens, Sen said.