Trinamool examines poll results in selected seats it lost

Kolkata: After bagging 29 seats in Bengal, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) is learnt to have sought reports from its block level organisation as part of its autopsy of results in certain seats where it lost to the BJP.

The Lok Sabha elections in Bengal though turned out to be a damp squib for the BJP, it managed to bag at least 12 seats. At least four to five of these seats were under the radar of the TMC which had campaigned hard to bag them. Sources said some of these seats are Bishnupur, Jalpaiguri and seats in North and South Dinajpur among others.

It was learnt that though the ruling party of Bengal is satisfied with its electoral performance by bagging close to 30 seats, it has begun an autopsy of the results in some of these seats. The TMC leadership were confident that the party would bag more than 30 seats but eventually got stuck at 29. In 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party got reduced to 22 seats from 34 in 2014 Parliamentary elections. Hence, this time the party was able to increase only seven seats compared to the 2019 results. This time, the TMC garnered 45.76 per cent votes compared to 44 per cent approximately in 2019.

The party is now learnt to have sought reports from its block level organisation. Sources said that it was Abhishek Banerjee who has sought the reports since he is in charge of the party’s organisation. Further, in the Bishnupur seat Abhishek held more than one campaign for Sujata Mondal who was defeated by her husband Saumitra Khan of BJP.

In North Bengal, although TMC managed to open its account by bagging the Cooch Behar seat, the rest were bagged by the BJP. The party had hoped to bag more than one seat in North Bengal and this was apparent from the efforts of both Mamata and Abhishek who began their poll campaigns from North Bengal.