JOIN USThe Trinamool Congress recorded its best-ever performance in Lok Sabha election in West Bengal as it swept 34 of the 42 seats decimating the Left in its victory march, while the BJP made impressive inroads winning two seats.
Repeating its historical 2011 Assembly election performance despite all the negative publicity the Saradha chit fund scandal generated, the TMC, which had 19 seats in the current Lok Sabha, added 15 more to the tally, all of which were wrested from the Left Front.
The CPI(M)-led Left Front in its worst-ever showing in Lok Sabha election could manage to win only two seats.
The Left Front lost all the 15 seats it had won in 2009 in the 15th Lok Sabha, but could manage a win in two seats - Raiganj and Murshidabad, both of which were held by the Congress.
The Congress managed to retain four of the six seats it had won in 2009, with President Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit Mukherjee retaining Jangipur, though winning by a slender margin of 8,315 votes.
However, in an upset for the party, Union minister Deepa Dasmunshi lost to CPI(M)'s Mohammad Salim by just over 1,000 votes.
The BJP, which does not have much of an organisation in the state, however, appeared to have been boosted by the Narendra Modi wave which saw the party's vote share jump by 11.14 per cent.
While playback singer Babul Supriyo sprang a surpise by winning from Asansol, BJP vice-president S S Ahluwalia won from Darjeeling with the support of Hills party Gorkha Janmukti Morcha which is seeking separate statehood.
The TMC not only made a clean sweep in its stronghold in south Bengal districts, winning 30 out of 31 seats, the party made significant inroads in the Left bastion in north Bengal snatching four seats -- Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Balurghat -- from it.
Since the formation of the party in 1998, this was the best-ever performance in Bengal for TMC, which came very close to Banerjee's stated objective of being the third largest party after the BJP and the Congress.