CM calls emergency meeting of party top brass to review poll performance
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has called an emergency meeting of her party leaders at her Kalighat residence on Saturday following the saffron surge in the state during the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls.
All senior leaders of the TMC along with the district presidents and the candidates have been asked to attend the meeting.
In the recently announced verdict of the general elections to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha, the Trinamool Congress got 22 seats while BJP won 18 with Congress bagging two. Though the TMC has increased its poll percentage to 43, the BJP made a photo finish with 40 percent votes taking the number of seats to 18. In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the TMC got 34 seats while Congress got four, CPI(M) two and BJP two. BJP has made a remarkable growth taking its poll percentage to 40 from 17 in 2014.
Since 2011 when the TMC came to power, Mamata Banerjee had held the highest number of meetings in North Bengal and Jangalmahal but in 2019 Lok Sabha poll, both these areas have voted against the party. The party lost all the eight seats in North Bengal and four seats in Jangalmahal.
The poll result indicated that CPI(M) supporters have voted the BJP en block. The vote percentage of the party has come down from 28 percent in 2014 to 5 percent in 2019 and this 23 percent has gone in the BJP's favour.
Political experts maintained that along with shifting of votes to BJP from the Left, the former had successfully used the election machinery of the Trinamool Congress in North Bengal and Jangalmahal to win all the seats. They said that this is true for some other areas as well.
Veteran party leader Saugata Roy's vote has come down to 53,000 from 1.54 lakh in 2014. Two-time MP from Hooghly Ratna Dey Nag who had won by 1.89 lakh votes in 2014 lost to Locket Chatterjee of the BJP. Chatterjee got 73,000 votes. Dey Nag took lead in two out of seven Assembly segments. They are Chandannagore and Dhaniakhali. In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, she took lead in all the seven segments and Chunchura and Dhaniakhali gave her over 1 lakh lead. Aparupa Podder, MP from Arambag, who had won the seat by 3.86 lakh votes, however, retained the seat by 1818 votes.
BJP's S S Ahluwalia defeated Mumtaz Sanghamita by 1,839 votes. She had won the seat by 1.07 lakh votes in 2014. Even in the by-election in Krishnagunj seat in Nadia where party MLA Satyajit Biswas was murdered in February, Trinamool has failed to retain the seat. It has been bagged by BJP's Ashis Kumar Biswas. The BJP has won three more seats in the by-election.
