Kolkata/Chennai, May 13: Mamata Banerjee stormed the Red bastion terminating the Left Front's 34-year stranglehold on West Bengal, while Jayalalithaa wrested power with a landslide victory over DMK in the assembly elections whose results were out today.
Congress added to Left's discomfiture by snatching power in Kerala by a slender margin while it scored a spectacular hattrick in Assam bagging a near two-third majority to retain power.
However, the party surrendered power to a rebel in Puducherry who left the party only a few months ago and teamed up with AIADMK to secure two-thirds majority in the 30-member assembly.
Riding a wave of change in a state where Left ideology ruled the roost for over three decades, Banerjee along with allies Congress and SUCI gave a severe drubbing to the Left Front.
The Banerjee-led alliance was set to capture over two-thirds majority by winning over 225 seats in the 294 seat assembly. Banerjee, Railway Minister at the Centre, did not contest the elections.
Trinamool Congress has won 178 seats and was leading in six more seats, while Congress bagged 42.
On the rival side, the CPI(M), which headed the Left Front, has won 39 seats and was ahead in one seat.
The CPI(M) suffered humiliation when a number of its bigwigs, including Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, bit the dust. Shortly after defeat, Bhattacharjee resigned.
With defeats in West Bengal and Kerala, the Left will have power only in Tripura.
Tamil Nadu lived up to its ‘winner takes all' reputation as Jayalalithaa swept back to power with a landslide victory with her alliance set to cross the 200 mark in the 234-member assembly.
Riding the plank of DMK's alleged corruption in the form of 2G spectrum scam and perceived resentment over the ‘family rule' of Chief Minister Karunanidhi, AIADMK on its own is set to get 151 seats.
The party has won 132 seat and was leading in another 19 seats. The DMK has won 16 seats and was ahead in six, while ally Congress which contested 63 seats could manage only five wins.
State Congress President K V Thangkabalu, who made a dramatic entry into the contest after the alleged bungling over his wife's candidature, lost the Mylapore seat by nearly 30,000 votes.
The 2006 elections was a rare one for Tamil Nadu when for the first time it had a minority government. The DMK had then won 96 seats and the government survived on outside support from Congress and others. The AIADMK had won 61 seats in the 2006 elections.
While Jayalalithaa and Chief Minister Karunanidhi won in Srirangam and Tiruvarur respectively by huge margins, Deputy Chief Minister and DMK heavyweight M K Stalin was trailing in Kolathur. Karunanidhi tendered his resignation.
Assam provided a surprisingly huge victory when the party returned to power for the third time. Congress vastly improved on its performance of 2006 when it had got 53 seats in the 126-member assembly by bagging 76 seats today and was ahead in two more.
The main opposition party AGP was reduced to a rubble having won only nine seats and leading in one more. It had 24 seats in the earlier assembly.
The defeat of the Left in Kerala was not as resounding as in West Bengal when the Left Democratic Front was neck and neck in the race for power and ultimately yielded by a slender margin to the Congress-led UDF.
The UDF won 72 seats, two more than the half way mark in the 140 member assembly. The LDF won 68 seats.
Ageing Marxist veteran V S Achuthanandan's singlehanded campaign against corruption appears to have played a leading roled in curbing the UDF's tally.
The 87-year-old Chief Minister helped CPI(M) emerge as the single largest party with 45 seats against Congress' 38.
Puducherry broke the Congress' hold on power when it voted an alliance of N Rangasamy Congress and AIADMK which got two-thirds majority in the 30-member assembly of the Union Territory.
The NR Congress, headed by former Chief Minister N Rangasamy who left Congress a few months ago, bagged 15 seats while ally AIADMK won five seats.
The ruling Congress was reduced to seven seats, while ally DMK won two. A lone Independent was successful. PTI
