Riven with intra-party squabbles and defections in its ranks, Congress’ tally from in West Bengal was reduced from four to two seats in this state as the results of the 17th Lok Sabha election was declared on Thursday.
The winds of change blowing in favour of BJP were the proverbial last straws under which Congress nominees buckled having been already hamstrung by an exodus of leaders and rank and file to the Trinamul Congress camp.
Caught unawares in the undercurrent of a saffron wave flowing in the state for quite sometime, Congress seems to have been the worst sufferer in this elections.
Its inability to cement an electoral understanding with CPI-M-led Left Front coupled with party president Rahul Gandhi’s campaigning fading in the backdrop of a far more aggressive crowd interaction by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, boiled down to Congress influence coming to almost to a zilch.
This is the worst result of the party since the fateful paliamentary election in the wake of the Emergency in 1977 in which Congress was routed by Janata Party and Left nominees and is yet to return to power in the state.
It had won three seats with Sougata Roy winning from Barrackpore, Dhiren Bose from Asansol and Ramkrishna Chetri from Darjeeling. Winning from Behrampore constituency, former PCC chief and Murshidabad strongman, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and A H Khan Chowdhury winning from Malda (south) managed to retain a toehold for their party.
But it was a sob story for the Congress nominees in the rest of the seats, a pointer to the fact that the party’s support base in what had once been in its strongholds in Murshidabad and Malda have been decimated.
While CPI-M nominee at Jadavpur Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya lost to Trinamul nominee, actress and poll debutant, Mimi Chakraborty, Trinamul nominee at Bankura, Subrata Mukherjee lost to BJP candidate Dr Subhas Sarkar.
The tally of four seats in the 2014 elections sharply dropped to two seats in this election. Of the victorious Congress nominees in the state in 2014 paliamentary polls, Mausam Benazir Noor representing Malda (north) had defected to Trinamul and contested as its candidate in this election.
Congress has fielded her cousin Isha Khan Chowdhury against her though Noor’s switchover apparently seemed to vastly improve Trinamul’s prospects in Malda(south), the BJP nominee Khagen Murmu reaped the gain.
Of the other seats, the Congress leadership was caught in the wrong foot after Apurba Sarkar and Abu Taher Khan, both Congress legislators defected to Trinamul. Both were lieutenants of Adhir Chowdhury and Sarkar gave their erstwhile chief a run for his money when he took on Chowdhury at Behrampore.
Khan won after being pitted against Abu Hena at Murshidabad parliamentary seat, while Trinamul nominee Khalilur Rahman defeated Avijit Mukherjee at Jangipur. It took Behrampore MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to admit during the day that BJP had managed to polarise the votes to its advantage in large parts of Murshidabad district.
The hardest blow dealt was by former PCC chief Dr Manas Ranjan Bhunia who left following his difference with leader of the Opposition, Abdul Mannan.