The stunning verdict was at Kalchini (ST) in Dooars, the tea estate territory. For the first time an independent candidate won from the seat which the LF leaders and political pundits thought is a safe seat for RSP in as much as anti-LF votes would be split between the Congress, Adivasi Vikash Parishad and the Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha-supported independent candidate.

PWD minister and RSP leader Kshiti Goswami's reaction to the poll results is candid - “As in 1977, people want a change in the government”, unlike the LF chairman and CPI(M) polit bureau member Biman Bose, “ People have gone against us. We have to do introspection.” But there are some ingredients in the chemistry of verdict that the commentators in general failed to read, although one has to study the change and emergent pattern of voting before arriving at any firm inference.

First, the All India Trinamool Congress won in seven out of seven seats it contested. The lowest margin is of about 5570 at Egra (Purva Medinipur district) while the highest is at Bongaon of nearly 40,378, all-time record in that constituency ( North 24 Parganas district). Take Belgachhia (east) seat which fell vacant due to death of Left Front government's most controversial minister Subhas Chakraborty, CPI(M) state secretariat member whose funeral procession was among the biggest in three decades of LF regime, although it was more a spontaneous response than an organized affair. His widow, Ramala, a CPI(M) district leader, was fielded by the CPI(M) leadership who hoped that sympathy factor might help the party retain the seat. She lost by a margin of over 28,000, record margin there too. Margins at Serampore (Hooghly), Contai-South (Purva Medinipur) and Alipore (Kolkata) are 25,000-plus. The party snatched two seats from the CPI(M) - Rajganj (SC-Jalpaiguri) and Belgachhia (East) ,which elected CPI(M) nominees uninterruptedly since 1977.

Second, signs of further swing away from the LF are eloquently manifest. Consider Rajganj (SC) constituency which elected CPI(M) in 2006 assembly election by a margin of 49,472 votes. The CPI(M) candidate Mahendra Kumar Roy who won from the Jalpaiguri parliamentary constituency this year had a surplus of 4,847 from Rajganj segment. The AITC candidate trounced the CPI(M) nominee Dhanapati Roy by a margin of over 15,000 votes. Belgachhia has been a marginal seat since 2001. In 2006 too, Chakraborty scraped through with a margin of 1,749. The Congress candidate cut away over 9800 votes.

Third, the Congress fielded three candidates, but won only one - Sujapur, the home constituency of the late A B A Ghani Khan Chowdhury whose record of victory was by a margin of 33,478 votes. His brother Abu Naser Khan Chowdhury won by 29,469 votes. It failed to retain Goalpokhar seat where the All India Forward Bloc Candidate Victor Ali, the lone LF winner, won by 14,488 votes. But Deepa Dasmunshi, who won from the seat in 2006, had a 21,000-plus lead in that segment of Raiganj LS seat wherefrom she won in 2009. But since 1977, LF or AIFB, was defeated only once in 2006. At Kalchini, Congress, supported by AITC- stood fourth with some 23,000 votes. The Congress had to pay for ditching the alliance with the AITC by forming the board at the Siliguri Municipal Corporation with CPI(M) support, after the last LS polls.

Fourth, the AITC would not win the Rajganj (SC) seat if the GJMM didn't ask electors to cast ballots in favour of AITC candidate a week before the polling. The victory of the GJMM-supported independent candidate Wilson Champamari at Kalchini (ST) gives a clear message. The Gorkha autonomy demand has a popular appeal not only in Darjeeling Hill areas but Dooars, the tea estate territory region as well. If AITC supremo and railway minister Mamata Banerjee thinks that her ma (mother), mati (land) and manush (people) will click among ethnic Nepalis and Adivasis, she would perhaps err grievously

The Left - CPI(M and CPI in particular - has to accept the reality of emergence of an alternative under the maverick AITC leader. The CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat's characterization of AITC as “ the extreme reactionary party” looks like a comical-expression. He too has to judge the new combine - AITC and Congress more objectively. A former CPI(M) MLA and ex-mayor of a municipal corporation expressed annoyance over “irresponsible” observations by Karat, Bose, and even relatively sober West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. “ Have all voters who cast ballots against the Left become reactionary? Our big shots are amidst a delirium of power that has been corrupting the entire party structure. Many veterans feel that the LF heads for an ignominious defeat in the 2011 elections. The bye-poll verdicts are an advance warning. Our party may plunge into an unprecedented crisis of inner-party feuds, animosity and violence. The very word 'Left' is being ridiculed today.” (IPA)