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Trinamul breaches Left Front bastion

Rifat Jawaid in Calcutta

Ending the decades long dominance of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Left Front in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamul Congress pulled off a smart victory in the mayoral poll held on Saturday. In the 141-member house, Trinamul candidate and trade union leader Subrata Mukherjee polled 66 votes while the LF nominee Kanti Ganguly got 62.

The course of action adopted by the 13 Congress corporators was crucial to the outcome. They met in a city hotel in the morning to decide whether to take part in the voting or abstain. Their decision to abstain ensured Mukherjee's victory.

The Congress leadership was under intense pressure to support the Trinamul. In the last few days, two of its corporators, Shamsuzzaman Ansari and Rajkishore Gupta, had switched loyalties and joined the Trinamul.

Ironically, though some Congress corporators were expected to vote for the Trinamul candidate irrespective of the party's official stand, the results revealed that one Trinamul corporator had voted for the LF candidate. The LF's strength in the CMC is 61.

Speaking on the party's historic victory in the CMC, the newly elected mayor said that his first priority was to work for the welfare of people of Calcutta. "The LF's consistent efforts to buy Trinamul corporators notwithstanding, I have won. It proves that people of Calcutta are increasingly disenchanted with the CPM's misrule and desperately want a change. The top priority is to convert Calcutta from a city of malaria to a city of joy," Mukherjee remarked.

A visibly ecstatic Mamata told reporters at the Trinamul's Nizam Palace office that her party's victory was the beginning of the end of the LF in West Bengal. "I am pleased that the people of Calcutta have reposed faith in our party and I can assure them that they will never feel let down. We don't consider it as the Trinamul's victory. It's the victory of common people of Calcutta. We will try our best to ensure that their long cherished desires for a better Calcutta are fulfilled," the Trinamul supremo asserted.

The LF also assured its full co-operation to the newly elected mayor. Kanti Ganguly, however, ridiculed the Trinamul's claims that the LF's poor showing in the CMC election will affect its prospects in next year's assembly polls.

"They are living in a fool's paradise. What they fail to understand is that the assembly election is entirely different ball game. Irrespective of our showing in the Calcutta civic polls, no one, not even the Trinamul, is capable of matching the Left's popularity in the rural areas," Ganguly said.

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