Trinamul on Monday started a 10-day protest against the failure of the Narendra Modi government to rein in fuel prices, the event coinciding with petrol price touching Rs 100 a litre in south Bengal districts such as Bankura, Birbhum, Purulia and Hooghly.
Bengal’s ruling party decided to counter the BJP’s growing support base by exposing the “anti-people policies of the Modi government”, and the protest against the rising fuel prices was an outreach in that direction, a Trinamul insider said.
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In Bankura’s Raipur, Trinamul leaders rode on a dozen bullock carts and started a “dedicated route from Bankura to Calcutta and Bankura to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence in Delhi” in a mock gesture against fuel price rise.
Is This the End of the Road for the CPI(M) in Bengal?
Many grassroots CPI(M) workers held its leaders responsible for the broken relationship between the top party leadership and its cadres.
Activists of CPI (M) stage a protest rally against hike in electricity bills, in Kolkata. Photo: PTI/Ashok Bhaumik
Politics14/May/2021
Kolkata: May 2, 2021 turned out to be a historic day for the Left parties for two reasons. First, by winning the assembly election in Kerala, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) broke a long cycle of one-term government in the state which was continuing since 1977. Second, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front failed to win even a single seat in the West Bengal assembly election. In a first since independence, there wonât be a Left representative in the Bengal state assembly.Â
The CPM bagged a little over 28 lakh votes this Bengal election. Trinamul won 35 lakh votes in South 24-Parganas alone, and 31 lakh in North 24-Parganas.
These figures, from the Election Commission, reflect the drubbing the onetime rulers of Bengal took this election almost as succinctly as the number of seats they won: zero.
The CPM’s vote share was a pitiful 4.70 per cent less than a tenth that of Trinamul which, of course, contested 289 seats compared to the Marxists’ 139.
“The CPM, once a king in Bengal politics, became a beggar within a decade,” political scientist Biswanath Chakraborty said.
He was referring to the haemorrhage that began in the CPM’s vote bank with the 2009 general election in the aftermath of the Singur and Nandigram movements and could not be stanched even after 12 years.
In the clash of the titans where the TMC was in a straight fight with the BJP in most constituencies, the once all-powerful Left seems to have been squeezed into oblivion.
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Mamata Banerjee may challenge Nandigram verdict in court
Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee has said that she will approach the court over alleged mischief in Nandigram where she lost elections to her ex-aide Suvendu Adhikari. How come EC reverse Nandigram result after formally announcing it? We will move court, Mamata told reporters in Kolkata. Returning officer of Nandigram said recounting order can lead to his life risk, she claimed.
Mamata, who is set to head the eastern state for another five years, has a window of six months to seek re-election. As per the rule, a CM and minister must become a member of the Legislative Assembly within six months from the date of swearing-in.