KOLKATA: It was an election with many firsts for Mamata Banerjee. In a career spanning almost four decades, she had never contested a seat outside south Kolkata much less against an estranged aide who jumped ship a few months prior to the polls. A spate of further poll-eve defections posed another unfamiliar challenge. A much-discussed leg injury just when the bid for a third term appeared in need of a leg-up ensured that Mamata, known to always walk the extra mile, spent almost the entire 50-day campaign in a wheelchair.
Not all of what she had to contend with was unexpected. For Mamata, who began her electoral journey with a Lok Sabha win in 1984, the 2019 general elections that saw BJP wresting 18 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in her citadel marked the start of a new political curve. Instead of the Left Front and Congress, her primary opponent in the 2021 race for Bengal was now BJP, which was eager to build on its gains in 121 assembly segments.
The landslide victory of Mamata Banerjee has not only thwarted the Modi wave that has swept over India but also relegated the Left and Congress to a footnote in West Bengal polls. Trinamool Congress, which is all set for a third consecutive term in West Bengal, also brought hope for major regional political parties to check Modi's populist sway and posed a challenge to the
Giant killer Mamata s tryst with three dates
By
Saibal Gupta ( IANS) |
Published on
Mon, May 3 2021 21:36 IST |
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Mamata to meet Governor, stake claim to form govt. Image Source: IANS News
Kolkata, May 3 : May 2, 2021 is perhaps one of the three dates that Mamata Banerjee will remember all her life, not just because she became the Chief Minister of West Bengal for the third time in a row by defeating the all-powerful BJP single-handedly, but because her tryst with dates such as this is part of her historical evolution to weave a political narrative that she is in true sense a Giant Killer.
Giant killer Mamata Banerjee s tryst with three dates
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Last Updated: May 04, 2021, 03:52 PM IST
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Synopsis
It was in 1984 when Rajiv Gandhi and Arun Nehru threw a challenge to an aggressive young woman demanding a ticket to fight the parliamentary polls in the post-Indira election, and they offered her an impossible Jadavpur ? a constituency so decisively red that a non-Communist would not even dream of contesting from there. Anybody else would have politely turned down the offer, but not Mamata Banerjee.
Assembly Elections 2021: Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu poll results decoded
May 2, 2021 is perhaps one of the three dates that Mamata Banerjee will remember all her life, not just because she became the Chief Minister of West Bengal for the third time in a row by defeating the all-powerful BJP single-handedly, but because her tryst with dates such as this is part of her historical evolution to weave a political narrative that she is in true sense a Giant Killer.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee landed a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the West Bengal Assembly election, the result of which was announced on Sunday, decimating the challenges by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). But there remains a confusion over the outcome in Nandigram, the seat of her prestige fight with former party colleague and now a BJP member, Suvendu Adhikari.
A three-member TMC delegation was understood to have met the Chief Electoral Officer at the Election Commission office in Kolkata and sought a recount in Nandigram, even as Banerjee s protégé-turned-adversary Adhikari tweeted thanking the people of Nandigram for their love, trust, blessings and support and for choosing him as their representative. He even tweeted a result annexure showing a winning margin of 1,736 votes.