TMC bags four municipalities, loses Haldia

The municipal poll results, a year after Mamata Banerjee stormed to power in Bengal crushing 34 years of Left rule, show that ‘Mamata wave’ is still effective in Bengal, though it lost steam to some extent.

Trinamool Congress bagged four out of six municipalities that went to poll on Sunday. It retained Panshkura and Nalhati municipalities and gained Dhupguri municipality and Durgapur Municipal Corporation.

The CPIM-led Left Front staged a good show in the former den of controversial party leader Laxman Seth and retained its hold on Haldia municipality. TMC also failed to retain Coopers Camp at Nadia, which went to Congress.

On the other hand, accepting Trinamool Congress’ challenge, Congress again proved its supremacy over Coopers Camp. But it failed in Nalhati from where Union Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit is elected to Assembly.

Since first election to this civic body, Congress never lost control over Coopers Camp, not even during Left Front regime. Pradesh Congress Executive Committee member Sankar Singh, who directly looks after Coopers Camp as well as Nadia district, is a known Mamata-baiter.

Few months before election, TMC had engineered a defection among elected Congress councilors at Coopers Camp and Nalhati and gained control over both the Congress-led municipalities.

Since then, Sankar Singh took it as a challenge to pay it back. Today, he thanked the voters of Coopers Camp for electing 11 Congress councilors in the 12-member municipality.

At Nalhati, TMC got a slender lead by winning 8 seats in the 15-member civic body. Congress and Left Front bagged 3 each and the rest went to BJP.

After the arrest of Laxman Seth for his alleged involvement in ‘March 14 Nandigram massacre’ and ‘Operation Surjoday’ in November 2007, it was being predicted that TMC’s road to gain control over Haldia municipality became easy.

Powerful TMC MP and president of the party’s youth wing Subhendu Adhikari was personally looking after it. But, today’s result gave a jolt to Adhikari-family as well as the 'Mamata magic'. The Left Front has successfully retained control over it by winning 15 out of 26 seats. Rest 11 seats gone to Trinamool Congress.

According to TMC insiders, infighting among party leadership is the main reason for this defeat. “Local MLA Sheuli Saha’s supporters were angry as they were deprived of tickets. They contested as independents and caused major damage to the party,” said Ram Giri, a local TMC activist.

As Sheuli Saha is close to Mamata Banerjee, she was asked to keep herself off from the campaign. In absence of Laxman Seth, his spouse and former MLA Tamalika Panda Seth was leading the campaign. The role of one Muzaffar Khan, a long time accomplish of Seth, has also affected TMC’s prospect.

Just after the polling, the Left Front chairman Biman Bose urged the State Election Commission for repolling at 29 booths of Durgapur. Congress and BJP too complained of massive irregularities at Durgapur booths, but no repolling was ordered.

Poll results show that TMC has bagged those seats where repolling was urged. TMC snatched Dhupguri from Left Front by winning 11 out of 16 seats, leaving 4 for the Left Front and 1 for BJP.
Left Front’s performance at Panshkura of East Medinipur was not so bad as Durgapur or Dhupguri. It had won 5 seats contesting against 7 seats five years back. TMC bagged rest 12 seats in the 17-member municipality.