Nandigram heralded Left slip,decline continues

The Lok Sabha results show that the Lefts slide in Nandigram shows no sign of halting.

The Lok Sabha results show that the Lefts slide in Nandigram shows no sign of halting. Left MP Lakshman Seth lost from Tamluk,under which Nandigram falls,by a margin of over 1.2 lakh votes. Seth had won the seat twice earlier.

Having been at the receiving end of the Buddhadeb Bhattarcharjee Governments high-handedness,Nandigram,in fact,showed that a wind of change was blowing through West Bengal as far back as the panchayat elections of 2008. Public anger has been high here on account of both the proposed land acquisition as well as the police firing in March 2007 that left 14 dead.

In the panchayat elections in 2008,the Trinamool Congress secured a little over 81,000 votes in Nandigram and captured three zilla parishad seats out of the our,defeating Left candidates. The Lok Sabha results show the Left has not been able to repair any damage to its support base,with the Trinamools Suvendhu Adhikary getting 1.05 lakh votes from the Assembly segment. The Lefts share was 69,000 votes,which went down to 51,000.

Significantly,the Trinamool had contested the panchayat polls without any alliance and the Congress candidates had secured only about 2,000 votes.

The Lefts declining fortunes were evident in the January 2009 by-poll held for Nandigram Assembly seat as well,following the resignation of CPI MLA Md Illyus,who was caught on camera evidently accepting bribe from an NGO in a sting operation by a private news channel. The seat went to Trinamools Firoza Bibi,the mother of one of those who died in the police firing of March 2007. She got 93,022 votes,against CPI candidate Paramanda Bharatis 53,473.

The number of votes won by Seth in the Lok Sabha polls is even lower than this figure. In comparison,Trinamools vote share has risen,with Adhikary getting 13,000 votes more than the number Firoza Bibi had garnered in Nandigram. In fact,Nandigram Assembly segment alone put Trinamool ahead of the Left by 54,000 votes in the Lok Sabha elections.

CPIM district committee member of East Midnapore Ashoke Bera claims the fallen vote share is on account of the party not being able to put up booth agents in 58 booths in Nandigram I. The Election Commission,he says,turned down their demand for re-polling at those booths,particularly in the Sonachura,Kalicharanpur and Kendamari panchayat areas. He says the Trinamool terrorised villages in these areas as a result of which Left voters did not turn up.

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Adhikary denies this,noting that the election was conducted peacefully under the supervision of central forces.