Assam

Early trends in the polls – Congress in a leading position, but not really ahead

At this point, the trends in all the regional elections are pretty clear, and some of the expectations are coming true. The states which went to elections were: West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Pondicherry. The results in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu were the ones which were most eagerly awaited, because of the implications of these on national parties. And the results did not disappoint, since the outcome of the elections have shaken up many politicians, with the most deep impact on the Left Front which lost its decades old bastion of West Bengal, and also seems to be losing in Kerala, thus relegating it to a non-entity. What happens to the leadership of Prakash Karat may be an interesting side-story. The Communist Front will lose all its political powers after this election, but the gainer is not the Congress. Here is a more state by state analysis.

West Bengal: The Left Front in the state, who have been in power for the past so many decades (since 1977) have finally lost by a huge margin to the firebrand Mamta Banerjee. This was somewhat expected, although the margin of victory shows how the Left has been sidelined. This is even more incredible since the Left has a cadre based organization which was expected to use its measures such as force and organization to get people to vote on its side. However, the lack of development, faulty policies by the Left, and many misdeeds of the Left cadre have pushed the people to vote in enough numbers for Mamta Banerjee. The Congress also wins, but is mostly along for the ride by virtue of being coalition partners. The Congress would have been hoping for an election where Mamta does not have a majority of her own, but it seems likely that Mamta will get to that position, which puts her in an incredibly strong position in the state, and continues with her ability to even push her weight around in the center. The Left will have to wait for quite some time to see whether it can even think of a comeback.
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