West Bengal elections 2016:TMC won 2/3 majority , CPM Red Faced

The Left parties, which went into the election riding on an informal understanding with the Congress, have suffered a crushing defeat in West Bengal. The “jot”, as the alliance was popularly called, worked on a seat-sharing model, in which the workers of both parties ostensibly worked together for the joint candidate. But within hours of the results pouring in, faultlines between the two partners have already started appearing. Some CPM leaders have alleged that while their “disciplined” workers ensured the Congress candidates did well, Congress workers didn’t reciprocate.
“We are still analysing the results and getting information from the districts so it is very difficult to tell what has happened,’’ said CPM MP Mohammad Salim, who was one of the main faces of the Left’s campaign this election.
But as leaders remained huddled inside Muzaffar Bhavan on Alimuddin Street, several theories have started doing the rounds. The BJP, which had made inroads due to a Modi wave in 2014, lost ground this election in terms of vote percentage. From 16.84 per cent, its vote share has gone down by nearly seven percentage points and rests at 10.2 per cent in 2016. The Left was hoping to target this vote share to defeat Mamata.
In the 2011 elections, TMC had a 39 per cent vote share — as did the combined vote shares of the Congress and Left. The arithmetic then was clear. But the vote swing away from the BJP did not come the Left way, and was instead captured by the Trinamool. “So the TMC’s vote share has gone up by this margin, slightly more maybe. So the problem wasn’t that we stagnated,’’ said a CPM leader. While CPM state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra has announced that the jot will continue and be strengthened before the 2019 polls, a number of factors will now be scrutinised — such as the seat-sharing module.