Not only did Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee hold her ground in West Bengal, but her party also made major gains, thereby puncturing the BJP’s plan to breach the TMC’s fortress once again. Till 8 pm Tuesday, the TMC had won 14 Lok Sabha seats and was leading in another 15 seats, a total of 29. Five years ago, the TMC had won 22 seats as the BJP had performed impressively, winning 18 seats. This time though it was a part of the Opposition INDIA bloc, the TMC fought alone in all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Despite being besieged by a series of corruption cases since the 2021 Assembly polls, the TMC fought the election on welfare schemes of the state government like Lakshmir Bhandar, the direct transfer benefit scheme for women, and ran the “BJP is anti-Bengali" campaign. The TMC vote share also jumped from 43.3 percent in 2019 to 46.01 per cent this time. Simultaneously, the BJP’s vote shrunk by 2.5 percentage points - from 40.70 per cent to 38.3 per cent. For the Congress and the CPI(M)-led Left Front, which had a seat-sharing agreement, unlike the last Lok Sabha polls, their overall vote share remained almost the same – 12 per cent in 2019 and 11 per cent now. While the Congress showed lead in only one seat – Maldah Dakshin, down from two in 2019; the Left failed to open the account like in the previous election. However, in at least 12 Lok Sabha constituencies, the vote share of the Congress and CPI(M) ranged from 17 per cent to above 20 per cent, which observers believe was snipped from the BJP share, thereby reducing the latter’s seats. In the 2021 Assembly elections, TMC had secured 48.02 per cent of votes, while the BJP and Left-Congress got 38.15 per cent and 7.66 per cent of votes, respectively. TMC national general secretary and Number 2 in the party, Abhishek Banerjee, broke all previous records, by winning Diamond Harbour seat with a margin of 7,10,930 votes. Former cricketer Yusuf Pathan, who made his electoral debut on a TMC ticket, turned out to be a giant killer by defeating the five-time MP and state Congress unit president, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, in Baharampur. TMC’s Mahua Moitra, who was disqualified from Lok Sabha by a parliamentary panel over the alleged “cash for query”, was re-elected from Krishnanagar. Senior TMC leader Kalyan Banerjee won from Sreerampur, Sudip Bandopadhyay from Kolkata-Uttar and Kakali Ghosh Dastidar from Barasat. Actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha retained the Asansol seat for the party, defeating BJP’s SS Ahluwalia. On Tuesday evening as the party workers celebrated the victory, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said: “I am happy. INDIA wins, Modi lost. He should resign. He said, BJP will get charso paar (cross 400 seats). but he did not get a majority. I am happy.” “Now they cannot pass any law on their wish. They cannot use Central agencies. Now, if they try, we will protest unitedly. I should say, do not behave like this. Please respect the verdict of the people. The judiciary should regain their independence,” she added. Major losses by BJP The BJP saw a major setback with its two Union ministers losing their seats - Nisith Pramanik lost to TMC’s Jagadish Prasad Basunia in Cooch Behar, and Subhas Sarkar lost to Arup Chakraborty in Bankura. Former BJP state president Dilip Ghosh lost to former cricketer Kirti Azad. Locket Chatterjee lost from Hooghly to television personality Rachana Banerjee, who was fielded by the TMC. Another Union Minister Shantanu Thakur is, however, leading in Bongaon. The BJP had made corruption and Sandeshkhali as its major poll plank, accusing the TMC government in the state of exploiting people through its strongman. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, campaigning for the BJP, had hit out at TMC on the Sandeshkhali issue, calling the party “anti-women” in every public meeting. The party also fielded one of the alleged victims of Sandeshkhali Rekha Patra, who lost to TMC’s Haji Nurul Islam of TMC by a margin of more than 3 lakh votes in Basirhat. Zero sum game for Left-Congress alliance The Left-Congress alliance did not perform as per its expectations, winning only one seat - Isha Khan Chowdhury from Maldah Dakshin. In 2019, the Congress had won two seats. However, the Left-Congress alliance was instrumental in cutting votes from the BJP in at least a dozen seats. For instance, BJP lost seats like Bankura, Dum Dum, Krishnanagar, Howrah, Sreerampore, Burdwan-Durgapur, Burdwan Purba, Asansol, Purulia, where the vote share of the Left and Congress went up from the previous election. Speaking to mediapersons, state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said: “There was an effect of polarisation in Baharampur seat. The BJP made gains here and that was the danger.” “We have to introspect. We did not perform as we expected," said Md Salim, CPI(M) state secretary who lost from Murshidabad. “People chose whom they will vote for. They thought Laksmir Bhandar was more important than the future of their children. We have to respect that and work more,” said Dipsita Dhar, CPI(M) candidate from Sreerampur. Dipsita was among the youth faces CPI(M) had fielded this time. She secured 14 per cent of the votes in Sreerampur.
