Mamata gives Left power cut

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The Trinamul Congress inflicted a crushing defeat on the Left Front in Sunday’s civic elections across West Bengal and won a landslide victory in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, bagging 95 seats in the 141-member body. Its first-ever victory in the municipality of upscale Salt Lake came as the icing on the cake.

The Trinamul Congress also won a big chunk of the 81 municipalities across the state which went to the polls, but there was a “hung” outcome in a large number. The Trinamul Congress won 27 of the 81 municipalities, with the Left getting 18 and the Congress seven. The results were “hung” in 29 municipalities.
The civic polls, projected as the “semi-finals” before the elections to the state Assembly, due next year, unmistakably established Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s supremacy on the state’s polity. Describing the results as a clear mandate against the Left Front government, Ms Banerjee demanded immediate Assembly elections. “This is a historic and revolutionary victory. It proves that the people of Bengal are impatient for change. The CPI(M) has lost its moral authority to rule,” she said.
The enormity of the Trinamul Congress victory in the KMC could be gauged from the fact that it increased its 2005 tally from 42 to 95, an incredible jump of 53 seats. The Left Front, which controlled the KMC from 2005 to May 2010, was reduced from 75 to 33 seats.
Besides the CPI(M)’s rout, another key outcome is the marginalisation of the Congress. The Congress, which had 16 municipalities under its control in 2005, managed to retain just seven this time. In the KMC, the Congress could barely reach double digits (10), while the BJP won three seats. With this victory, Ms Banerjee has sent a strong message to the Congress, with which its alliance had collapsed ahead of the polls. By sweeping Kolkata and single-handedly winning in Salt Lake and a number of other municipalities across the state, the Trinamul chief has undoubtedly increased her bargaining power and will have the upper hand in future seat-sharing talks with the Congress prior to the Assembly elections. But despite some overethusiastic Trinamul leaders claiming that their party would not need Congress support to defeat the CPI(M) in 2011, the results announced on Wednesday clearly indicate that a grand alliance with the Congress would be vital for it to be able to wrest West Bengal from the Marxists in the Assembly elections.
Even if, going by its impressive performance in the Kolkata civic body, Trinamul were to win all 11 Assembly seats in Kolkata, it would need to do a lot better in the districts where its performance in the May 30 polls was far below expectation. It is the districts that will determine which party wins the next Assembly election, and here it is significant that Trinamul could not do well even in its stronghold of North 24-Parganas, close to Kolkata.
The consequences of the division in the anti-Left vote became evident on Wednesday, with 29 municipalities — including Kharagpur, Cooch Behar, Bongaon, Rampurhat, Chapdani, Barasat — reporting “hung” results. If the Trinamul Congress and the Congress were to agree to a post-poll alliance even now, they could comfortably form the civic boards in these 29 municipalities.
“That is why,” a senior Trinamul leader told this newspaper, “we should not allow a triangular contest” in the Assembly polls, “where the real fight will be in the districts.” A three-way contest, he added, would “severely damage Trinamul prospects.”
Moreover, Trinamul sources point out, with the Assembly polls a year away, there is a good chance of the Left parties consolidating. That is the reason for Ms Banerjee’s vociferous demand for advancing the Assembly polls. Some of her close associates also feel that attempts to “armtwist the Congress” would be unwise as these could affect the party’s prospects.
Ms Banerjee said on Wednesday that her party’s success in the civic polls was even greater than its victory in the Lok Sabha elections of 2009. “The Lok Sabha fight was easier because there was an alliance of anti-Left forces, and we won 26 of the 42 parliamentary seats. In these civic polls, we had to fight against the CPI(M), the Congress and the BJP,” she said. To substantiate her point, Ms Banerjee noted that the Trinamul Congress had won this time in districts like West Midnapore, Bankura and Burdwan which were considered CPI(M) strongholds.
Significantly, the Trinamul Congress chief, who in the past has always complained of rigging by the CPI(M), has now expressed her gratitude to the state election commission for conducting peaceful and fair civic polls.