Kolkata: Led by mercurial Mamata Banerjee, 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.
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, 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.
Mamata thanks people, slams Congress-Left alliance:
Flashing the victory sign, Banerjee thanked people and dubbed the Congress-Left alliance as a "blunder", saying both forces had compromised with their ideologies, as per IANS.
Accusing the Opposition of spinning a "web of lies" to grab power, Banerjee said that 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 added.
Who won, who lost:
Apart from Banerjee, other prominent winners of the party included ministers Subrata Mukherjee, Amit Mitra, Partha Chatterjee, Firhad Hakim, Moloy Ghatak and city mayor Sovan Chatterjee.
The ministers who lost are Manish Gupta, Chandrima Bhattacharya, Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury, Sabitri Mitra, Shyamapada Mukherjee, Shankar Chakrabarty, Upen Biswas and Abdul Karim Chowdhury.
Another prominent TMC leader Madan Mitra, who was in jail in connection with Saradha chit fund scam, lost.
CPI-M state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra was defeated in Narayangarh constituency in West Midnapore. Another CPI-M veteran and former minister Kanti Ganguly lost from Raidighi.
CPI-M veteran and Siliguri mayor Ashok Bhattacharya, however, emerged victorious.
Left underlines need for 'serious introspection' in Bengal:
Meanwhile, the Left parties today underlined the need for "serious introspection" in West Bengal.
"We respect the verdict of the people with all the humility in Bengal. We will examine and review the results in in order to draw proper lessons from it. We though salute our comrades, who worked unitedly despite the attacks by TMC," CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters in Delhi.
(With Agency inputs)
