<p>The end of an era, fall of a mighty empire, a deadly tsuanami of anti-incumbency vote....one can go on with analogies to describe the unprecedented and unbelievable defeat of the CPI(M)-led Left Front in West Bengal after a prolonged and uninterrupted reign of 32 years.<br />It is a sort of Apocalypse when the famed and the fabled CPI(M) and the Front’s juggernaut has been stopped at 15 seats as against 35 in 2004. Meet the hurricane Mamata Banerjee who just blew out the myth of party organisation and booth-level committees that traditionally decided the victor and the vanquished in this highly politically polarised state.<br />In fact, the brazenness of the defeat, notwithstanding the flight of Nano, the small car, from Bengal to Gujarat, has left the CPI(M) state as well as the Central leadership groping for words to explain this shocking drubbing at the hustings.<br />Historically, it is the worst mauling of the Marxists since 1977 when the CPI(M)-led Front had assumed power in this key eastern state.<br />Earlier, in the wake of the ghastly assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi, the undivided Congress gave the maiden shake to the Left citadel when it captured 16 out of 42 seats in 1984.<br />But that was history; the onus of giving the tremor and the quake was left to the Congress sibling. After breaking away from the Congress and then aligning with the parent party for the second time (after a gap of eight years), Mamata re-asserted her position at the state and national level. And that too, after a terrible patch of political wilderness. Else, how does one describe her meteoric rise from one lone seat (she was the only representative) in the outgoing Lok Sabha to as many as 20 in 2009, which in simple arithmetic, is twenty times more... and with the Congress in tow, another six.<br />Forget the exit poll surveys, even the astute political pundits in the state have failed to anticipate this swing in favour of the Trinamool. Many expected the party to put up a tough fight though. <br /><br />Distinct shift<br /><br />Critics who were once baying for her blood for her espousal of the cause of the farmers at the cost of industrialisation, are convinced of a distinct shift in the minority vote bank from the Left to the TMC. Plus a large chunk of the farming community, the traditional vote bank of the Left, switched their allegiance over to TMC apprehending acquisition of land by the Buddhadev Bhattacharjee government.<br />“This election is not just about winning some seats... it is about breaking the myths about Bengal which has been witnessing more of CPI(M)-sponsored terror on the innocent and falling wide off the development map in the nation in the last three decades,” Mamata Banerjee told the Deccan Herald over telephone as results trickled in. <br />What is further stunning is that alongside the loss of faith of the agrarian community in the Left, the latter has miserably failed to win the heart of the urban electorate by harping on a new slogan “We want industry, we want agriculture.” The CPI(M) not only lost the two seats in the City of Joy, but also the adjoining Jadavpur from where chief minister and CPI(M)’s poster boy Buddhadev Bhattacharjee had won in the assembly elections.<br />There is no doubt that the LS results in Bengal have given a lethal blow to a thick layer of complacency that the Left has grown over the three decades. As the Left leadership undertakes the exercise of introspection, it ought to ponder on the factors behind the phoenix-like rise of Mamata Banerjee, who was just written off, and what paved the way for her dramatic return.<br /><br />Mamata Maya?<br /><br />True, the Trinamool Congress supremo might have provided comic relief to many by her strident tirade against the Tatas and the Nano; she even became the butt of a joke and lampooning in umpteen banners and posters put up by the Marxists’ supporters for successfully driving the Nano out of Bengal. But surprisingly enough, she not only weathered the storm at the end of the day, but in the process, seemed to have cast a spell of political invincibility around her political persona.</p>
<p>The end of an era, fall of a mighty empire, a deadly tsuanami of anti-incumbency vote....one can go on with analogies to describe the unprecedented and unbelievable defeat of the CPI(M)-led Left Front in West Bengal after a prolonged and uninterrupted reign of 32 years.<br />It is a sort of Apocalypse when the famed and the fabled CPI(M) and the Front’s juggernaut has been stopped at 15 seats as against 35 in 2004. Meet the hurricane Mamata Banerjee who just blew out the myth of party organisation and booth-level committees that traditionally decided the victor and the vanquished in this highly politically polarised state.<br />In fact, the brazenness of the defeat, notwithstanding the flight of Nano, the small car, from Bengal to Gujarat, has left the CPI(M) state as well as the Central leadership groping for words to explain this shocking drubbing at the hustings.<br />Historically, it is the worst mauling of the Marxists since 1977 when the CPI(M)-led Front had assumed power in this key eastern state.<br />Earlier, in the wake of the ghastly assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi, the undivided Congress gave the maiden shake to the Left citadel when it captured 16 out of 42 seats in 1984.<br />But that was history; the onus of giving the tremor and the quake was left to the Congress sibling. After breaking away from the Congress and then aligning with the parent party for the second time (after a gap of eight years), Mamata re-asserted her position at the state and national level. And that too, after a terrible patch of political wilderness. Else, how does one describe her meteoric rise from one lone seat (she was the only representative) in the outgoing Lok Sabha to as many as 20 in 2009, which in simple arithmetic, is twenty times more... and with the Congress in tow, another six.<br />Forget the exit poll surveys, even the astute political pundits in the state have failed to anticipate this swing in favour of the Trinamool. Many expected the party to put up a tough fight though. <br /><br />Distinct shift<br /><br />Critics who were once baying for her blood for her espousal of the cause of the farmers at the cost of industrialisation, are convinced of a distinct shift in the minority vote bank from the Left to the TMC. Plus a large chunk of the farming community, the traditional vote bank of the Left, switched their allegiance over to TMC apprehending acquisition of land by the Buddhadev Bhattacharjee government.<br />“This election is not just about winning some seats... it is about breaking the myths about Bengal which has been witnessing more of CPI(M)-sponsored terror on the innocent and falling wide off the development map in the nation in the last three decades,” Mamata Banerjee told the Deccan Herald over telephone as results trickled in. <br />What is further stunning is that alongside the loss of faith of the agrarian community in the Left, the latter has miserably failed to win the heart of the urban electorate by harping on a new slogan “We want industry, we want agriculture.” The CPI(M) not only lost the two seats in the City of Joy, but also the adjoining Jadavpur from where chief minister and CPI(M)’s poster boy Buddhadev Bhattacharjee had won in the assembly elections.<br />There is no doubt that the LS results in Bengal have given a lethal blow to a thick layer of complacency that the Left has grown over the three decades. As the Left leadership undertakes the exercise of introspection, it ought to ponder on the factors behind the phoenix-like rise of Mamata Banerjee, who was just written off, and what paved the way for her dramatic return.<br /><br />Mamata Maya?<br /><br />True, the Trinamool Congress supremo might have provided comic relief to many by her strident tirade against the Tatas and the Nano; she even became the butt of a joke and lampooning in umpteen banners and posters put up by the Marxists’ supporters for successfully driving the Nano out of Bengal. But surprisingly enough, she not only weathered the storm at the end of the day, but in the process, seemed to have cast a spell of political invincibility around her political persona.</p>