The CPI(M) received a massive jolt in West Bengal on Friday as the Trinamool Congress registered a landslide victory in the Nandigram assembly by-election. Feroza Bibi, the Trinamool candidate, defeated CPI candidate Paramananda Bharati by 39,551 votes.
The victory is even more shocking for the CPI(M) as the Trinamool has literally doubled its earlier lead of 16,000 votes in the panchayat elections of 2008. Political analysts prescribed caution for the CPI(M) in the coming Lok Sabha elections. “Nandigram being the biggest assembly seat under Tamluk constituency, the results will definitely make sitting CPI(M) MP Lakshman Seth edgy,” an analyst said.
Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee said , “This is the victory of the people. Mind it, this is the beginning of Left Front’s end in West Bengal,” Mamata said.
Left Front chairman and CPI(M) state secretary in West Bengal, Biman Bose said a combination of two factors - terror by Trinamool workers before the elections and the Left Front’s organisational weakness - were the main reasons for the CPI candidate’s defeat in Nandigram.
Bose is in Kochi for the party’s central committee meeting. The third candidate in Nandigram, Badshah Alam, contesting on behalf of Siddiqulla Chowdhury’s PDCI, could not make any impact in the Muslim-dominated Nandigram. Alam polled a little more than 1,000 votes.
Counting of votes cast in the by-elections to Para in Purulia and Sujapur in Malda also concluded on Friday. Congress candidate Mousam Benazir Nur defeated her CPI(M) rival by over 21,000 votes in Sujapur. In Para, CPI(M) candidate Minu Bauri won by over 40,000 votes.
