Wed, 05/04/2011
Kolkata, May 4 (IBNS): West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Wednesday said Left Front will retain its power in West Bengal.
“West Bengal has already undergone four out of six phases of Assembly elections. So far, the way people have exercised their democratic right, we are confident of our victory. People are going to establish eighth Left Front government in West Bengal,” Bhattacharjee said in a press statement on Wednesday.
He slammed Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and said: “Lots of efforts were put in by the Trinamool Congress to break confidence of our workers.”
“Trinamool is campaigning for an imaginary cabinet. They will also try to influence a part of voters in the coming two phases of elections. Earlier also they tried to do the same, but failed in their efforts,” said Bhattacharjee.
“I am confident that truth will prevail over lies and West Bengal’s people will ensure Left Front’s victory,” the veteran CPI-M leader said.
Over the last four years, the Left, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M), suffered back-to-back poll debacles which saw their majority challenged by Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Lok Sabha, Municipal and Panchayat elections.
Nearly 85 percent of the 1.26 crore people spread across 63 constituencies in four districts of West Bengal thronged to 15,711 polling stations throughout Tuesday for the fourth phase of state elections as voting concluded without any major incidents.
This was arguably the most closely watched phase of elections so far which included some of the most politically volatile areas of the state, including Singur and Nandigram which were the centres of violent protests against the ruling Left Front government during its last tenure.
The earlier two legs also saw largely incident-free polling amid high voter turnouts.
With the fourth phase getting wrapped up, West Bengal will go to vote for the fifth and sixth legs of the six-phased polling which began on Apr 18, on May 7 and 10 respectively. The counting is on May 13.
