West Bengal election result: Mamata Banerjee remains the Queen of Bengal

KOLKATA: Final tally was still hours away when Didi averred herself victorious in front of the media. "It is the magic of Ma, Maati, Manush, and not mine," she said. "Mamata belongs to the Manush (the people)," she grinned amid loud cheers from her supporters.

The good-old Mamata Magic worked yet again, silencing all speculation over her defeat, and she emerged mightier with more than a two-thirds majority, decimating an opposition teetering on the brink of non-existence in the 16th West Bengal Assembly elections. Mamata Banerjee swept to power for the second time with a staggering 211 (yet to be confirmed) seats.

In the course of her journey to the top, Mamata's Trinamool Congress has bulldozed all the ammo like the Saradha scam, the Narada sting operations, a flyover collapse, syndicate menace, factional feuds and her anti-industry image that the opposition had used and she shrugged off all allegations of corruption.


Trinamool increased its share of seats by 27 to win a comfortable majority with 211 seats out of 294. “It is a rarity that a party on its own managed to have a two-thirds majority. It never happened in Bengal in the last 49 years. Some forces tried to fool people, but people are intelligent. They have given a fitting reply to all conspiracies against me and my party,” Mamata said, maintaining a calm look that’s a rarity when it comes to the Trinamool supremo.

The Trinamool triumph has virtually brought the Left-Congress combine to the ruins with an abysmal tally of 76seats. This time, however, the journey to the helm was rather difficult and she had overcome a multitude of obstacles — from her ministers and aides being caught on camera taking bribes in a sting operation to the collapse of a flyover in the heart of the city and intense factional feud and facing an untested political rivalry from the Left-Congress alliance.

“Everybody in politics should stay within a limit,” she said. “There should be a minimum respect for your opponent. What you all (united opposition) did against me in the last six months is unthinkable. This is not good for politics and democracy. It is dangerous. All these opposition parties hatched a conspiracy against me and started confusing people by misleading them,” Mamata said at her residence early on Thursday.

“It is now established that there has been no corruption ever in Bengal. Bengal is a corruption-less state. People have proved it,” she said. This huge victory explains how Mamata’s schemes, mainly those, doling out cash and kind to people worked in favour of her. These schemes include Kanyashree (Rs 25000 to a girl child for continuing her education), Yuvashree (unemployment allowance of Rs 1500 to youth), Sabujsathi (distributing cycles to students), Rs 1 lakh donation to clubs, allowances to 55000 Muslim clerics in the state and so on.

Noted psephologist, Prof Biswanatah Chakraborty said, “This land slide victory for Mamata is the response of the direct beneficiaries of her social sector schemes. According to the statistics, 54% of the total voters are the direct beneficiaries of such schemes. It has pulled up her share to a great extent.” Crossing 200 mark actually shows Mamata’s ultimate control over the state and an absolute rout of the Left parities. Moreover, it made Congress the main Opposition reducing CPM to fragmented force inside the assembly.

“The space for Opposition has really shrunk now. The alliance will have 76 seats. Moreover, CPM will lose its status of the main opposition party,” added Prof Chakraborty.

Trinamool won in 11 of 12 seats in Kolkata defying the logic of Mamata’s party rides on rural votes only. Moreover, Trinamool Congress has pulled up its vote share to 45 % from 39 % in 2014 elections.

The 2016 West Bengal state assembly polls will be remembered as one that had raised the battle to a different height. One side was the “Agnikanya” (Fire Goddess) of Bengal who had to her credit the feat of dislodging the Left from Bengal after 34 years of uninterrupted rule.

That she achieved in 2011 and in this election she only made sure that the Left is buried on Bengal's ground deep and down. For the Left it was a fight for existence in which it joined hands with another diminishing entity called the Indian National Congress. The two added up to a force multiplier in which civil society players also joined in. Finally, the BJP also emerged as a robust political force but not good enough yet to outperform the other players in the field.