Hours after the Left Front romped home to its seventh straight win securing a staggering 235-seat majority in a House of 294, a beaming Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told reporters: “We underestimated the mind of the people. The huge victory margin was beyond our expectations.”

Tomorrow, when the CPM state secretariat meets, Chief Minister Bhattacharjee is expected to be given a free hand to form Team Buddha that will run the Left Front government for the next five years.

Party insiders indicated that, like the Left Front victory, changes in the Cabinet too would be “sweeping”. New faces are expected to head education, industry, transport and information technology.

The new government’s priorities, as Bhattacharjee told reporters at the CPM’s Alimuddin Street headquarters, would be agriculture, industrial investments and improving living conditions of the poor. The victory showed that the Left’s rural stronghold was intact while it had gained in urban areas.

But the highlight of Bhattacharjee’s victory is the legitimacy it gives to successive victories of the Left Front since 1977. CPM patriarch Jyoti Basu had claimed political stability for the state, winning five successive terms since 1977, but the Left’s success had always been under a cloud with the Opposition alleging that elections were rigged.

This victory rids the Left of the rigging charge, since it was held under close scrutiny of the Election Commission.

Voting shares in the latest elections show that not much has changed despite the huge increase in the Left’s tally of seats. While the Left won 235 seats this time against 199 in 2001, voting shares indicate that the Opposition parties lost over 60 seats because the votes were split. The Left got 47 per cent of the votes, while the Trinamool got 25.60 per cent, the Congress 16.97 per cent and the BJP 2.29 per cent. So the Trinamool, Congress and BJP got 44.79 per cent between them.

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