Mamata leaves the Left red-faced

In 2011, Mamata Banerjee’s TMC came to power in coalition with the Congress and some other parties, riding on a strong anti-incumbency wave against the Left Front. Out of 294 seats, Trinamool got 184 seats, Congress 42 and a smaller ally got one.

Five years later, the TMC has returned to power on its own with an improved seat and vote share.

State-wide presence The party won 211 seats, with its vote share rising nearly six percentage points from the 2014 Lok Sabha polls to 45 per cent. Excepting in Darjeeling and Malda districts, Trinamool’s presence is Statewide.

Apparently, the party enjoyed the full benefit of a nearly six-percentage-point slide in the BJP’s vote-share from the 2014 peak of 17 per cent (including nearly a percentage point of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, which supported the BJP). BJP’s votes increased in 2014 largely due to erosion of the Left’s support base.

According to Biswanath Chakraborty, psephologist and professor of city-based Rabindra Bharati University, the party retained its control over nearly 28 per cent Muslim votes and majority of the scheduled castes and tribes.

He gives the credit to development activity pursued by the Mamata Banerjee government and different public benefit schemes (read doles) that impacted the lives of nearly 54 per cent of the electorate.

Left suffers Trinamool’s former ally, the Congress, improved its seat share to 44, riding on a hurriedly struck alliance with its traditional rival, the Left.

But the deal cost the Left dearly. Its seat share dropped drastically from 62 to 30. Including one Left-backed Independent, the tally moved to 31. The total tally of the alliance stands at 77, down from combined seat-share of 104 in 2011.

The alliance cornered a little less than 38 per cent of the votes, down from the 39.6 per cent combined vote-share in 2014, when they fought separately.

Considering a three-percentage-point rise in the Congress’s vote share to 12 per cent, the Left took a beating. Apparently, a section of Congress voters didn’t approve of the alliance.

That calculations went haywire is evident in the results of the North Bengal constituencies, considered a bastion of the Left and Congress. The alliance expected to bag most of the 76 seats from Murshidabad in mid-Bengal to Cooch Behar at the Northern tip. They ended up with 42.

In the 218 South Bengal districts, where they had 69 seats in 2014 – the alliance got only 34.

In denial? CPI (M) State Secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra admitted that the alliance didn’t get the expected results but he refused to blame it (alliance) for the defeat. On the contrary, he blamed the “understanding” between the BJP and TMC.

State Congress President Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury blamed it on “money power”. The alliance’s remarks failed to cut much ice with Banerjee, who had all across described the undeclared coalition as “unethical”.

BJP jubilant Amidst the fall of the Left and the thumping win of the TMC, this election also brought cheers in the BJP camp as the party bagged three seats and its ally Gorkha Janmukti Morcha bagged three more in the hills, to take the NDA’s tally to six.

In the past the BJP had won one seat each in by-elections in 1999 and 2014.

What is more striking is that for the second time in history, the BJP managed to get over 10 per cent of the votes in the Assembly elections. The first time was in 1991, in the run up of the Ram Mandir movement.

“In terms of vote-share, the BJP has caught up with the Congress. The results clearly signify their rise as a new political force,” said Ashis Chatterjee, another city-based analyst.