While the Trinamool Congress again left parties in the dust in an election in West Bengal – this time the civic polls – there was a straw in the wind for the CPM and allies. The results showed the Left may at least have caught up with the BJP in the tussle for the distant second spot. As the counting of results for the 108 civic bodies wrapped up Wednesday, the TMC finished with 1,867 seats and control of all corporations, bar one. The solo non-TMC municipality now is Taherpur, won by the Left Front. In terms of seats, it got 57 to the BJP's 63 and the Congress's 59. However, in vote share, it was neck-and-neck with the BJP and ahead of the Congress. If the TMC got 62.44% votes as per State Election Commission sources – the official data is not out – the BJP and Left Front were virtually tied at 13.42% and 13.57% respectively. The Congress vote share was 5.06%. CPM leaders expressed satisfaction that the party appears to be gaining lost ground not only in the Kolkata corporation area but also in districts. A senior leader said, "We fought against atrocities of the ruling party. Wherever we were able to protect polling booths from TMC goons, we won." The Opposition has claimed there was large-scale violence during the polls held on February 27. However, the authorities said there were only stray incidents. After 2011, when Mamata Banerjee came to power for the first time, the Left's vote share has been declining. From 30% of the votes in 2011, its vote share fell to just 7% in the 2021 Assembly elections. It did not win a single seat in the Assembly. The Left showed signs of a climb back first in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation polls in December 2021, when it came second in 65 seats with 11.87% votes, ahead of the BJP's 48 seats and 9.19% votes. In four other civic body polls that followed, in February - Asansol, Biddhannagar, Chandannagar and Siliguri – if the TMC received 61% of the votes, the Left Front got 16.75% and the BJP 14.5%. The setbacks to the BJP are not surprising. The party has been imploding since the Assembly elections, which could be one reason for some of its votes returning to the Left, which ruled Bengal for three decades before it was replaced by the TMC. Several Left leaders also see in the results an indictment of the TMC's handling of the probe into student leader Anis Khan's murder. Even so, no party is anywhere close to the TMC in the state. Besides the seats it won, the TMC is looking at eventually having a hold over almost 100 Independent winners who are its rebels. Many of them are believed to have already expressed their willingness to return. TMC leader Partha Chatterjee said a call on this would be taken by Banerjee. TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said the Opposition did not bother it. “They are far behind. It is true some BJP vote has shifted to the Left camp but a major share of the vote of the BJP has also shifted to us." He added: "People of Bengal have given us the first position. We do not want to think about who came distant second or third. However it is true that people who gave votes to the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha and the 2021 Assembly elections have realised the party's true character. Those people are now voting for the TMC, and, yes, some of them are also voting for the Left.” CPM leader Sujan Chakraborty said the party had fought against “tremendous violence” by the TMC. “In Taherpur, people resisted the TMC violence, and hence we won that municipality. In other places also, people tried, but failed." Dilip Ghosh, national vice-president of the BJP, told The Indian Express that there was no denying that the party has slipped in the state. However, he cited the reason as “lack of an environment for free and fair campaigns”. “This time 50% of our workers and even candidates could not campaign out of fear."
