CPI(M) loses all five seats, TMC wins all seven
The outcome of the by-elections in 10 assembly seats has dealt a blow to the sagging morale of the Left Front in West Bengal as they fared poorly. Keeping with the trend set by the recent general elections, the Left lost all but one seat of the 10 that went to polls on last Saturday.
The TMC came out with flying colours, they have won seven out of seven they had contested. The Congress, its ally, contested three but could retain only one. Surprisingly, Kalchini, an assembly seat in North Bengal on the border of Bhutan, went to an Independent candidate supported by Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.
The seven seats won by TMC are Alipur, Serampore, Bongaon, Egra, Contai South, Rajgunj and Belgachia East. The CPI(M) lost all five seats it contested. Of the five, the most humiliating defeat it has suffered is at Kolkata’s Belgachhia East, vacated after senior leader Subhas Chakraborty died. For the first time since 1977, CPI(M) has lost the seat. Its candidate Ramola Chakraborty, Subhas’ wife and a member of the party’s state committee, has been defeated by TMC’s Sujit Bose by a margin of nearly 30,000 votes.
The only seat that the Left could snatch away from the opponents is Goalpokhar at North Bengal. The seat was vacated by Deepa Dasmunshi after she got elected to Lok Sabha. Forward Bloc’s Ali Imran defeated the Congress candidate there by nearly 15,000 votes, giving credence to speculation that Mamata Banerjee and her TMC supporters deliberately voted in favour of the Left candidate to teach her a lesson. Known for her strong opposition to the leadership of Mamata Banerjee as the leader of the opposition politics in Bengal, Deepa Dasmunshi recently played a key role in forming an alliance with the CPI(M), forming the municipal board at Siliguri.
“It was not the TMC supporters alone, the Congress voters also did not like the way Deepa Dasmunshi has been pursuing her disruptive politics,” observed a TMC legislator.
Also Read
Once the results were out, there has been growing demand from the Opposition for the ruling Left Front to seek fresh mandate from the people. Siddhartha Shankar Ray, a former chief minister of West Bengal and a veteran Congress leader, spoke candidly after the election results were out and suggested that now that the Left suffered a series of electoral setback, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee should resign as chief minister. Ray pointed out that the result of Kalchini should not come as a surprise.
Mamata Banerjee in her initial reaction claimed moral victory of her politics and dedicated this to the memory of all those people who recently became victims of the violence in the state.
Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee declined to comment on the Left Front's rout.
“No,” Bhattacharjee shot back when reporters questioned him at the Writers Buildings about the debacle.
Veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu, who had made an unprecedented appeal to the Congress to vote for the Left in the bypolls, was not informed about the debacle. "He was not informed about the election results. What does he have to say about it now?" the 96-year-old Marxist veteran's aide Joykrishna Ghosh said when asked. Biman Bose, state secretary, CPI(M) and the chairman of Left Front, has admitted defeat and said that they would review reasons for the setback soon.
While by-election was necessitated in nine constituencies after sitting MLAs were elected to the Lok Sabha, the Belgachia (East) seat fell vacant due to the death of former transport minister Subhas Chakraborty.
The CPI(M) contested five, CPI two, Forward Bloc, RSP and DSP one each. Except Forward Bloc, which won the seat it contested, all the other Front partners drew a blank. PWD leader and senior RSP leader Kshiti Goswami said, “It is true that resisting an anti-incumbency wave is difficult. Such an anti-establishment wave surfaces when a party or combine is in power for a prolonged duration. The Left Front is in trouble now.”
Goswami, however, said he did not think the LF government should quit office but should face the assembly polls in 2011.