Bengal Left suffers another setback

Routed in municipal polls against the Congress-TC combine.

In less than two months after its defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, the ruling Left Front in West Bengal suffered another setback with the combined opposition of Trinamool Congress (TC) and Congress snapping up 10 of the 16 municipalities which went to the polls on Sunday.

Buoyant about the election verdict, TC leader and Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee said in New Delhi today that “the CPI(M) should take lessons from this verdict and step down from power.” Echoing her, leader of the Opposition in the state legislative Assembly and TC spokesman Partha Chatterjee said in Kolkata that Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee should resign, taking moral responsibility for the electoral defeat.

Demoralised by the back-to-back electoral defeats, the state CPI(M) leaders were not forthcoming with their reaction. Only Subhas Chakrabarty, a minister of the present Left Front government, said: “The people have punished us for our misdeeds.”

Viewed as a part of the build-up to the coming state Assembly elections in 2011, this municipal election result is expected to further consolidate the Opposition and demoralise the ruling Left. Next year, around this time another 80 municipalities, including the Kolkata Corporation, will go to polls. Thus, the Left will get hardly any respite to reorganise their rank and file and meet the challenge.

The result of municipal elections clearly show that the anti-Left sentiment, which was evident during the general elections, is still alive in the state. Of the 16 municipalities which went to poll on June 28, the Left won only three and the Opposition got 13. In the previous term, the Left had control over 10 out of 16 municipalities.

The most significant victory of the Opposition took place in the Asansol Corporation, which falls within Burdwan district. The district had been unaffected by the growing anti-Left sentiment and even during the general elections the Left could retain all the three Lok Sabha seats there.

But the Opposition’s win in Asansol indicates that the anti-Left sentiment is spreading to other parts of the state. Of the 13 municipalities won by the opposition, nine are in the region which became the ‘killing fields’ for the Left in the Lok Sabha elections.