After being in power in West Bengal for 15 years, not only did Mamata Banerjee lose her government, but losing the contest to Subhendu Adhikari in the second consecutive election will also be seen as a big stain on her shining political career.
‘Didi’, who lost the contest to Adhikari in Nandigram five years ago, has this time faced defeat in Bhawanipur, which was once her stronghold.
Anti-incumbency wave against TMC, religious polarization and continuous hard work of BJP workers reduced TMC to just 80 seats while the saffron party surprised everyone by crossing 200. This election was very difficult for Mamata Banerjee herself and the outcome was the same which she probably knew till the day of voting. This is the reason why on the day of voting, when Mamata Banerjee was seen running from one booth to another in Bhawanipur, political pundits had guessed that ‘Didi’ was trapped in the Chakravyuh.
Mamta herself stayed in the counting center for 5 hours
Mamata Banerjee, who appeared relatively calm and confident in the last two elections, was herself present for more than five hours this time in the counting center at Sakhawat Memorial High School. However, after the 18th round of counting, when she saw herself lagging behind by about 11 thousand votes, she walked out and finally Shubhendu Adhikari was declared the winner by 15105 votes. Outside the counting center, Mamata Banerjee alleged misbehavior with her and even said that she was kicked.
How the game changed from round to round
The match between Subhendu Adhikari and Mamata Banerjee was very interesting and kept changing from round to round in the same way as the exciting football matches played in Kolkata sometimes seem to tilt in one direction and sometimes in the other. Initially, when the trends started coming in favor of BJP, Shubhendu Adhikari was also seen taking lead over Mamata Banerjee in Bhawanipur. After the second round of counting, he had taken a lead of 1458 votes over Mamata Banerjee. After the third round, Banerjee was ahead by 898 votes. By the seventh round, he had increased this margin to beyond 17 thousand. It seemed that this time Mamata Banerjee would at least save her seat.
However, the game was yet to be played. Even before the counting started, Subhendu Adhikari had said that initially Mamata Banerjee will be ahead but when the EVMs of the pockets supporting her are opened, she will definitely win. Exactly the same thing happened. After the 7th round, the odds started tilting rapidly in Adhikari’s favor. After the 13th round of counting, Mamata Banerjee was ahead by only 5349 votes. In the 16th round, Adhikari went ahead by 554 votes. In the 17th round he had gained lead by 6226 votes. The margin in the 18th round was 10994 votes which finally ended at 15105.