Manish Gupta, who was West Bengal home secretary in January 1993 when the police had dragged out Ms Mamata Banerjee, then a Youth Congress leader, from the Writers’ Buildings, has become the giant killer in the 2011 Assembly polls by defeating chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at Jadavpur by 16,684 votes, that too as Ms Banerjee’s nominee.
The flamboyant IAS officer was the state chief secretary when Mr Bhattacharjee took over the mantle of chief minister from the late Jyoti Basu in November 2000. Mr Gupta retired in November 2001. Since then, he was working as consultant before agreeing to Ms Banerjee’s call to contest against the chief minister in the polls. And his first appearance in the poll proved to be a mega hit as he defeated Mr Bhattacharjee, who was seeking re-election from Jadavpur constituency for the sixth consecutive time.
Earlier in the 1982 Assembly elections, Mr Bhattacharjee was defeated in erstwhile Cossipore constituency but then he was the information and cultural affairs minister and not the chief minister. The defeat of Mr Bhattacharjee, who had got massive mandate in the 2006 Assembly elections in favour of his industrialisation drive, has surprised even many of the staunch anti-Left supporters.
However, defeating state commerce and industries minister Nirupam Sen, the number 2 in the state Cabinet, in the red bastion of Burdwan was considered the dream of the Opposition which was finally fulfilled. Rabiranjan Chatterjee, the Trinamul Congress nominee from Burdwan South constituency, who was branded by the CPI(M) an “outsider”, finally defeated Mr Sen, the “son of the soil”, with a huge margin.
Gautam Deb, the number one crowdpuller for the CPI(M) in the poll campaigning because of his stormy words against Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and allegations about use of black money by the Trinamul Congress in the polls, was also defeated by Trinamul Congress candidate Bratya Basu.