Assembly Election Result 2021 | Mamata Banerjee keeps BJP at bay in Bengal, but loses Nandigram to Suvendu Adhikari

File image of West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee (Image: PTI)

Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress (TMC) clinched an emphatic victory in the high-stakes assembly election battle, defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form the government for a third consecutive term in West Bengal.

After running neck and neck in the initial hours of counting on May 2, the TMC successfully pulled ahead of the BJP significantly. As per the figures from the Election Commission, the TMC had comfortably crossed the halfway mark in the 294-seat assembly (excluding the two constituencies where polling has been delayed). At the time of updating this report, the TMC had 209 wins and was on course to win 213 seats. The BJP was ahead in 77 seats with 76 wins.

The Left Front, which governed the state of West Bengal for over three decades uninterrupted until 2011, failed to win even a single seat. Left’s ally Congress, which finished as the second-largest party in the previous assembly polls, also drew a blank.

The BJP also got points for posing a tough challenge in Nandigram, where Banerjee was defeated by her aide-turned-challenger Suvendu Adhikari.

Adhikari, a former TMC stalwart, had joined the saffron party only in December 2020. He won against Banerjee by a slim margin of 1,736 votes.

However, she implied that she will take oath as the chief minister.

With the emphatic poll victory, Banerjee joined the league of Nitish Kumar, Naveen Patnaik and Arvind Kejriwal who have humbled PM Narendra Modi. Amit Shah and Modi invested a lot of political capital in the state leading the campaign, and according to political analysts, this result was a setback of sorts for the duo. The two jointly held as many as 51 rallies and roadshows covering all districts of the state.

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Banerjee had opted to take the fight to the Opposition camp by contesting from Nandigram, and not contesting from her ‘safe’ Bhabanipur seat. During the campaign, Adhikari had attacked the chief minister calling her an “outsider” to the area. The constituency was once a Left stronghold.

Many political observers had predicted that Nandigram would be one of the most-watched electoral battles in the state's history.

The BJP made heavy gains in northern Bengal, while the TMC held on to the southern strongholds.

In the Singur constituency,  Trinamool’s Becharam Manna defeated the BJP's Rabindranath Bhattacharjee, who moved to the saffron party ahead of the election.

Singur is one of the strongholds of the TMC. It was the second place where Banerjee launched a movement against the Left government’s land acquisition for the Tata Nano factory.

West Bengal is one of the most politically important states in the country for its size, a regional identity underpinned by strong political awareness -- among the masses and the bhadralok (elite) alike -- and for a generational shift that has now witnessed the BJP emerge as a challenger taking on Banerjee who spiritedly pushed aside a decades-long Left rule.