Left Front won in two wards and came second in 65 seats in KMC polls. BJP has got two seats and came second in 48 seats
KMC election results are declared, and we are not surprised by TMC securing three-fourth of the total vote share. But what gave us a sense of comfort is — Left Front is slowly regaining its position.
Though Left Front has won in two wards, it had come second in 65 seats. On the other hand, BJP has secured three seats and came second in 48. This downplays of BJP by the ‘laal party’ (Left Front called in Bengal) give us a distant hope of seeing tripartite politics.
Results in comparison to 2015 polls
Trinamool Congress is jubilant on winning 134 wards and 71.95% of the total vote share. The Left Front got 11.13% and BJP 8.94% of votes, respectively. The Congress managed to get just 4.47% of the votes, while 3.25% of voters preferred Independents.
In 2015, TMC won in 114 wards, and the Left Front won 15 seats. TMC has increased its vote share by 22%, compared to the 2015 KMC election. The vote share has also increased by 11% in comparison to the 2021 Assembly polls (KMC wards).
Congress has won in five wards in the 2015 KMC polls. The BJP has won seven seats. BJP’s vote share has fallen by around 6% and 20% lesser than state Assembly polls held in March-April this year.
Left Front’s popularity
Left Front’s result in the 2021 KMC election is much better than anticipated. They have won in two wards and came second in 65 seats. Though their vote share dropped by almost 13% than in 2015, it increased by 7% when compared with the last Assembly polls.
The trend of the Left Front gaining ground was visible during the bypolls. Despite not winning the election, they managed to increase their vote share. But in Kolkata, CPI (M) and its allies are mostly popular and are not entirely decimated.
Like earlier times, they have given a good fight to TMC. In the 2015 and 2010 KMC polls, Left Front had won in 15 and 32 wards, respectively.
The fight between BJP and Left Front about the chief political opponent in Bengal is sliding towards CPI (M) and their allies right now. Most Left leaders are now pointing their fingers at Mamata Banerjee for confusing the residents about their chief political opponent.
Currently, there are 112 municipalities in the state. In 2015, Left Front won 5 out of 90 municipalities across the state.
Left was prepared
After gaining a bit of their vote share in Santipur bypolls and better performance than BJP in most rural bypolls, Left Front was ahead of BJP in the KMC polls (earlier predictions). They were the first party to release their candidate list and poll manifesto.
A chunk of their candidates were young leaders who were active during the pandemic and had earned popularity locally. These young leaders were also called Red Volunteers. Around half of their candidates were women. Red Volunteers and a free canteen for the poor during the lockdown in the city had given them the required edge against the BJP.
Their manifesto talked about digitizing the entire tender process, improving public health centres. The most important and popular promises were the installation of sanitary napkin vendor machines and public toilets for women.
Also, urban residents of Bengal were traditional left supporters due to trade union movements and others. The rural supporters were gained much later and were lost in Singur and Nandigram issue. But urban Left voters in pockets were still strong and active. During the Assembly elections, young Left candidates have secured at least 10% of the votes.
However, replication of this result on a grand scale might not be seen in another long period.
