With assembly polls due next year, West Bengal witnessed CPI-M's rout in crucial civic elections in 2010 which also saw the demise of its tallest political figure Jyoti Basu and increasing clashes between ruling Left Front and Opposition Trinamool activists.
Basu passed away on January 17 at the age of 96 in a huge loss for his party, which was to face further blows in the months to follow.
Trinamool Congress maintained its winning streak trouncing the Left Front in the elections to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and emerging as the most successful party in the polls to 80 other civic bodies across the state.
The polls held on May 30 again displayed the pro- Trinamool tide in evidence in the state since the elections to rural bodies in May 2008.
The year also witnessed increasing bitter verbal duels between top leaders of the two main parties -- CPI(M) and Trinamool -- and widespread political clashes between the workers of the arch-rivals.
Several areas like Mangolkote, Nanoor, Khejuri, Nandigram, Sashan and Ketugram in South Bengal witnessed clashes between Marxists and Trinamool Congress and Congress with the Centre and the state governor expressing grave concern over the trend. The Naxalites also killed a large number of political workers in areas dominated by them.
Political violence since the Lok Sabha election results in May 2009 has left hundreds dead.
It took a turn for the worse towards the end of the year with members of student wings affiliated to CPI-M and Trinamool indulging in a free-for-all on city streets which left one student killed, one blinded and several injured.
The year also saw Trinamool vociferously demanding an end to Centre-state joint operations against Maoists in the state, but the Union government made it clear that it would not be conceded too.
Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee even said she was ready to quit if she cannot prove that CPI-M was misusing Central forces brought for anti-Maoist operations in West Bengal.
The Opposition party also alleged there were 58 armed CPI-M camps in the state. Home Minister P Chidamabaram too criticised the existence of some such camps in West Midnapore district, though the CPI-M denied that such centres are being run.Banerjee's views on Maoist leader Azad's killing at a party rally in Lalgarh in West Midnapore was seized on by the CPI-M and also the BJP which asked the government to come clean on her alleged open support to Naxals.
Similarly, Trinamool's claim of CPI-M forming suicide squad to eliminate the Trinamool supremo kicked up a political storm.
Banerjee's relations with Congress, with which her party was in a 'mahajot' (grand alliance) during 2009 Lok Sabha polls, turned frosty after AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi's visit to Kolkata in August when he spoke about respect for allies.
Banerjee retaliated by referring to him as a 'cuckoo' which arrives only in spring.But relations between the two parties strengthened after Banerjee met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in November in New Delhi. As Congress faced the 2G spectrum scam crisis in the Winter Session, she said her party would be happy if there was a joint parliamentary committee probe into the matter but maintained that it would not withdraw support to government.
The ties, however, turned turbulent again after some Congress leaders from state attacked Trinamool in party plenary held in December. A top Trinamool leader said it was prepared to go it alone in the coming assembly elections in West Bengal if the alliance does not materialise while Banerjee asserted that the party's "options are open".
