It was on 13 May, 2011 Trinamul Congress ended the reign of the Left Front government in West Bengal and put an end to 34 years of misrule.
People never thought that the CPM rule could end. CPM had unleashed a reign of terror in Bengal. There were incidents of forcible acquisition of farmland to set up an automobile factory by the Tata Motors at Singur. The farmers were gunned down when they resisted forcible occupation of farmland to set up a chemical hub at Nandigram and killing of agricultural workers at Netai in Birbhum.
Mamata Banerjee took up these issues and was able to mobilize the civil society to resist the move of the CPM government. Nandigram put the nail on the CPM-led Left Front’s coffin. In the 2009 panchayat election, Trinamul won the zilla parishad in East Midnapore and South 24-Parganas. In 2010, it won the Kolkata Municipal Corporation election and finally defeated the CPM in the 2011 Assembly election. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya was defeated in Jadavpur and industries minister Nirupam Sen in Burdwan. Finance minister Asim Dasgupta was defeated in Khardah and housing minister Gautam Deb in Dum Dum.
Remembering the people’s victory, chief minister Mamata Banerjee wrote on X: “On May 13, 2011 Bengal emerged victorious by putting an end to the tyranny of the brutal Left regime. Today, 13 years later, the people are queuing outside polling booths to defeat another set of oppressors from Delhi. History will repeat itself.”