The Left’s miserable electoral run continued as the Trinamool Congress, surging ahead with a vote-share larger than it had in the Lok Sabha polls, handed another humiliating defeat to Left Front major CPM which drew a blank in the bypolls in West Bengal. In Kerala, the other Left citadel, the Congress won all three seats, defeating the Communists.

Of the ten seats where bypolls where held in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress, which fielded candidates in seven, made a clean sweep, winning all. Ally Congress, which contested three, won only one when it retained the Sujapur seat in Malda.

The Forward Bloc was the only Left Front outfit to win a seat. A stunning outcome was the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha-backed Independent’s victory in Kalchini in Jalpaiguri district. The RSP was the loser there. The CPM drew a blank in all the six seats it contested.

Jubilant, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee told reporters in Delhi: “The CPM should give up now and take rest. They are paying for the sins they committed in the last 32 years.”

In 2006, seven of the ten seats went to the Trinamool Congress and Congress while the remaining three were held by the Left Front — two by the CPM and one by RSP.

The West Bengal results, while reflecting the trend of growing support for the Trinamool Congress, also sent out some hard messages.

For one, Mamata Banerjee exacted sweet revenge for the hurt the Congress caused the Trinamool earlier in Siliguri — this time, the Congress was defeated by the Forward Bloc in Goalpokhor, a seat in Uttar Dinajpur which had been vacated by Banerjee’s adversary within the alliance, Deepa Dasmunsi, wife of Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi.

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