KOLKATA: West Bengal’s ruling Left Front on Saturday paid a heavy price for the land movement in Singur and Nandigram which has helped the Trinamool Congress- Congress alliance to sweep the Lok Sabha election in the state.
The Left Front lost many seats in South Bengal and showed its worstever performance in Lok Sabha elections since 1977 in the state. The Left Front, especially the CPM, had projected the Trinamool Congress as the main hindrance for the Left Front’s move to set up industries by acquiring land.
The Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance won 25 out of the total 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The BJP won the Darjeeling seat.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who won the Kolkata Dakshin seat with a margin of a record two lakh votes, dedicated the victory to the people of West Bengal. ‘’We have performed well. I dedicate the result to the people of West Bengal who have supported us.
The Left has lost the mandate of the people in West Bengal,” she said.
State Left Front chairman and CPM’s state committee secretary Biman Bose said the defeat was unexpected.
Political analysts here feel that the CPM has failed to realise that the land issue is a reality and industrialisation is all about future.
The CPM’s failure in realising this has helped the Trinamool Congress, which carried out the land movement during the last two and a half years, to capture most of the South Bengal seats.
Both the Tamluk constituency, under which the Nandigram Assembly segment falls, and Hooghly, where the Singur segment is located, have gone to the Trinamool Congress. The Trinamool Congress nominee from Tamluk seat Suvendu Adhikari defeated his nearest CPM rival Laxman Sett by over 1.75 lakh votes.
The election clearly showed that forcible acquisition of multi-crop land was closer to the people than the setting up of a car project in the state.
In another important analysis, political observers say that the Muslims, who in the past always supported the Left, this time round voted against the ruling party following the Sachar Committee report which had pointed out the dismal condition of Muslims living in the state.
This apart, the political experts attributed the defeat of the Left Front to the change in life style of a section of the leadership.
The good showing will encourage the Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance to jointly fight the Left Front in the Assembly elections slated in 2011.