Left and Congress were blown off, TMC lost much of its roof in the Saffron Fani as 2019 election results on Thursday saw BJP seriously denting Mamata Banerjee’s stronghold.
In an extraordinarily polarised atmosphere, the Lok Sabha poll results found BJP making massive inroads into TMC “green fort” of Bengal apparently getting a huge chunk of Left Front votes to swing its way.
According to last reports — even as VVPATs were being counted — the ruling Trinamool Congress was leading in 22 seats conceding 12 seats to the BJP which was leading in 18 seats.
The Congress which won four seats in 2014 was leading in only two seats with former PCC president and sitting MP Adhir Chowdhury clinching the Behrampore seat and AH Khan Chowdhury leading from the Malda South seat.
Making a record of sorts the Left Front not only transferred 23 per cent votes to the saffron outfit but also for the first time since 1955 drew a blank sending no MP from the erstwhile Red citadel.
Percentage-wise the TMC polled about 43 per cent votes while the BJP got about 41 per cent votes wresting almost 23 per cent votes from the Left which got just about 8 per cent.
The Congress polled 5 per cent votes shedding 5 per cent to BJP and TMC.
Among the notable winners were BJP State president Dilip Ghosh who defeated senior TMC leader Manas Bhunia, Union Minister Babul Supriyo who won the Asansol seat trouncing cine star Moon Moon Sen by more than 1.75 lakh votes. Supriyo had won this seat in 2014 by about 70,000 votes. Sen a sitting TMC MP had been shifted by Mamata Banerjee from Bankura to take on the Bollywood singer-turned BJP MP from Asansol.
A three-time North Malda MP Mausam Benazir Noor who switched sides from the Congress to the TMC ahead of the elections was trounced by BJP Khagen candidate Khagen Murmu a former CPI(M) MLA.
Another big loser from the TMC was State Minister Subroto Mukherjee who lost to BJP’s Subhas Sarkar from Bankura. Senior TMC leader and former Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi also lost from Barrackpore seat to Arjun Singh, a former TMC MLA and strongman who joined the BJP a month before the polls.
From Hooghly seat BJP candidate Locket Chatterjee defeated two-time TMC MP Ratna Dey Nag while from neighbouring Serampore seat TMC’s Kalyan Banerjee defeated his nearest BJP rival.
Senior TMC leader and Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee won the Diamond Harbour seat by a massive margin of more than 3 lakh votes. Both the seats from Kolkata however went to the TMC as veteran party MP Sudip Banerjee defeated BJP heavyweight and national secretary Rahul Sinha.
Among the known faces from the CPI(M) losing the battle were outgoing Raiganj MP Md Salim and former Kolkata Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya who lost to TMC’s Mimi Chakrabarty, a Bengali cine star from Jadavpur seat.
The BJP left quite an impression in the Assembly by-elections too winning four out of eight seats that went to polls. The TMC won three seats while the Congress managed to win only one seat. The CPI(M) drew a blank here too.
Even as a pall of gloom descended near the TMC supremo’s Kalighat residence with no leader coming out to address the press, Mamata Banerjee came out with a brief tweet “congratulating” the “winners” and asserting that her party would assess the reason of the debacle saying this was a setback and not a defeat.
Offering the “excellent performance to the people, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and our workers” Dilip Ghosh said “this victory is the result of Modiji’s good works,” adding the victory also “shows the amount of disgust and desperation against TMC’s goonda raj that they had perpetrated in Bengal for the past several years. They would not only allow the people to vote but also they would throw hundreds of our workers in jail on false charges.”
This was backed by Babul Supriyo who said, “Despite our workers being beaten up and voters being threatened the people of Asansol came out in great numbers to vote for us. We thank them from deep of my heart.”
TMC’s Saugato Roy who won from Dum Dum seat, however, blamed the Left Front for transferring their votes to the BJP. “Do you think that there is any BJP in Bengal. The people of this State can never accept that culture. Bengal is different. Still the BJP did well because the Left Front transferred their votes to them. The way the Left transferred its votes to the BJP only speaks volumes of the erosion in value-based politics.”
When asked to comment on his victory Adhir Chowdhury said, “Mamata Banerjee brought BJP to Bengal, allowed it flourish by creating a cloaked communal atmosphere which was used to the full by the BJP. This vote was not a proper vote but a result of complete polarisation. The results are also the outcome of TMC’s repressive politics and goonda raj.”
The CPI(M) also was as calm as the TMC with its senior party leaders privately wondering whether “there is a need to bring in new young leaders and relieve old ones.”