People's Democracy

  Bengal LF Registers Impressive Win At Civic Polls

B Prasant

WINNING more than 60 per cent of the municipal wards across the state and emerging victorious in 19 new municipalities, Bengal Left Front posted an emphatic win at the municipal elections.  The result, as state secretary of the CPI(M) Anil Biswas puts it, has ‘certainly reinforced the fact that the Bengal Left Front has further widened its popular base in the urban areas. 

The Pradesh Congress and the Trinamul Congress, the two chief opposition parties, have been left floundering in the wake of the LF electoral triumph, faring clearly poorer than they could do in the year 2000, despite cobbling together a ‘grand alliance’ in several municipalities. 

The drubbing was especially embarrassing for the Pradesh Congress that had gone in for a tie-up with the communal forces in a desperate bid to gain a better political mileage. 

The BJP has consistently maintained its record of drawing a pristine blank in terms of municipalities won in secular and democratic Bengal. 

The results at a glance look like this when compared to the 2000 polls:

* Pradesh Congress has won in 10 and is leading in the race to form board in three municipalities through  post-poll manoeuvrings

Both Anil Biswas and Left Front chairman Biman Basu have congratulated the 0people of Bengal for ensuring a big win for the Left Front in the urban stretches.  They have said that the results have again demonstrated how the popular urban base of the Bengal Left Front has kept widening inexorably over the years, the ‘doom-and-gloom’ prediction of the corporate media notwithstanding.