If Banerjee wins Bengal Polls, party will face strongest opposition in decades, WB assembly polls 2016, West Bengal Polls Result 2016, Trinamool Congress, Mamata Banerjee

If Banerjee wins Bengal Polls, party will face strongest opposition in decades, WB assembly polls 2016, West Bengal Polls Result 2016, Trinamool Congress, Mamata Banerjee

For the past one and a half months, an intense battle has raged in West Bengal during the longest election process in the state to date.

What started out ahead of the elections as an unambiguous result in a landslide victory for the incumbent West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress government, has slowly transformed into one of the tightest, most closely contested elections between the ruling party and the opposition parties seen so far. Banerjee, known for being “nervous”, launched her election campaign from the district which is seen as the weakest link in her repertoire – the Congress dominated Malda district.

The coalition of the Left and the Congress, popularly known in West Bengal as the “people’s coalition” or the “jote” had just been announced and Banerjee’s debut speech, and every speech thereafter, focused on this coalition – one that made her extremely nervous.

As the campaign and the six-phase election progressed, the campaign steadily unravelled for the TMC. First, a sting operation by the obscure Narada news channel, showed 11 senior TMC leaders — all close aides of the chief minister and most of whom were contesting the 2016 election — take cash from a fake company called Impex Consultants in exchange for favours to the company.

What had begun before the elections as a confident campaign quickly sank into a mire of uncertainty. Banerjee lashed out at the BJP and the Jote alleging political conspiracy. By the time the third phase of the election began, a chastened Mamata apologized to the people of West Bengal pleading that they continue to vote for the TMC and that she would rectify the problems in her party and government once back in power.

The BJP, with the Prime Minister himself at the helm of a very aggressive campaign, has fared well too. This prompted an increasingly nervous Banerjee to accede in a public rally that she believed that the BJP would win several seats in the assembly elections.

Whatever the final result, for the first time since the Left came to power and the TMC won a landslide victory in 2011, West Bengal will have its strongest opposition.

src:indianexpress

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