Mamata Banerjee elected TMC legislative party leader, to take oath as West Bengal CM on May 27

Contesting the poll on its own, Mamata Banerjee-led TMC bagged 211 of the 294 seats at stake while Congress-Left combine got 76 seats.

Mamata Banerjee elected TMC legislative party leader, to take oath as West Bengal CM on May 27

Kolkata: The newly elected MLAs of the Trinamool Congress on Friday formally elected Mamata Banerjee as the legislative party leader, a day after the party stormed back to power defeating the Left-Congress alliance and BJP in the recently concluded assembly polls here.

TMC's legislative party meeting reportedly began at 12:30 pm.

Riding on the development plank, Trinamool Congress on Thursday stormed back to power in West Bengal getting more than two-thirds majority decimating the Opposition Left-Congress alliance.

Contesting the poll on its own, TMC bagged 211 of the 294 seats at stake while Congress-Left combine got 76 seats.

Interestingly, the TMC had secured 184 seats in 2011 Assembly election when it had fought in alliance with Congress.

Congress, however, did better than its Left partners securing 44 seats. Left partners CPI-M bagged 26 seats, RSP-3, CPI-1 and Forward Bloc-2.

Banerjee, who formed the Trinamool in 1998 by breaking away from the Congress to fulfill her life's mission of taking on the then entrenched Communist Party of India-Marxist led (CPI-M) Left Front, not only won handsomely with a 25,000 plus margin from Bhabanipur, but also made the Trinamool the only party in the state to emerge victorious in the assembly election by fighting alone since 1962.

Flashing the famed victory sign after the resounding triumph, Banerjee thanked the people and dubbed the Congress-Left alliance as a "blunder", saying both forces had compromised with their ideologies, as per IANS.

On the other hand, she dubbed the coming together of CPI(M) and Congress as the "greatest blunder" and said people had rejected the "canards" spread by the opposition against her.

Accusing the opposition of spinning a "web of lies" to grab power, Banerjee said politics in the state had hit a "historic low" during electioneering and there should be a "laxman rekha" to maintain decency in public discourse.

"People of Bengal have rejected attempts by the Opposition to mislead them. The people did not like the way the opposition has spread canards against me in this election. It is not good for politics and democracy," she told reporters, as per PTI.

Referring to the charges of corruption against her party, she dubbed it as "a propaganda by a section of media. There is no corruption in Bengal. Bengal is a corruption-free state. The people have rejected the allegation," she asserted.

"This is the magic of Ma-Mati-Manush. The people are very intelligent. They have given reply to the allegations levelled by the Opposition," she continued.

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