“Right” turn ahead?

The roads of Kolkata are witnessing a change in colours of celebration these days. The usual red gulal is slowly being replaced by the mixture of green, white and saffron. On November 10, with the announcement of by-election results, ecstatic supporters of the Congress-Trinmool Congress (TMC) alliance flooded the roads of Kolkata and their slogans praising Mamata Banerjee threaten to shatter the windows of Writers Building, the seat of West Bengal state government.

The Congress-TMC alliance swept the by-elections by wining eight out of ten assembly seats. The ruling Left Front could win only one seat of Goalpokhar – a traditional congress stronghold – where the Forward Bloc candidate defeated the Congress by a margin of over 20,000 votes. One seat was won by an independent. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) emerged as the biggest loser in these by-elections.

The CPM contested in five constituencies. It not only lost all five but also failed to retain the two seats it held previously. The red party suffered the major blow when TMC grabbed the Belgachia East–constituency of former Transport minister Late Subhas Chakraborti, which he had never lost since 1977 – from them. The TMC candidate Sujit Bose won this seat by a huge margin of 28,360, defeating CPM’s Ramala Chakraborti,  widow of the former minister.

Mamata Banerjee can now start dreaming about 2011 state assembly election results as the TMC has triumphed with a 100% victory record in these by-polls. The party fielded a total of seven candidates, with all of them emerging victorious. The party not only managed to destroy the red citadel of Belgachia East, but was also successful in gaining entry in North Bengal. Here, the TMC candidate Khageswar Ray made his way to the State assembly by defeating CPM’s Dhanapati Ray with a margin of 15,029 votes. The move to attract young voters towards the party by fielding young candidates did not work for the CPM. This time the party fielded a fresh, new and young candidate from Alipore, a traditional winning spot for the TMC. 30 year old Kaustav Chaterjee couldn’t improve things for the CPM, and his party lost by a margin of 27,555 votes.

The Left Front was the incumbent in three constituencies before the by poll and it suffered a loss of two seats, both of them belonging to to CPM. The other Left Front partners, also failed to shine. Communist Party of India (CPI) was contesting two seats, while Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) campaigned for one. Except for Forward Bloc’s lone seat, all were thrashed by the Congress–TMC alliance.

Despite an unprecedented appeal from the veteran Marxist leader Jyoti Basu to the Congress to vote in favour of the Left Front, the voters seem to have chosen the alliance over the Left Front.

This is an alarming situation for the state government. The CPM has quashed all rumours about an early state election, but the situation in the state seems to be slipping out of their hands.