Trinamul Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee thanked the people for giving her party unflinching support for the past 15 years.
She said Trinamul Congress is committed to ma mati manush and will continue to serve them looking after their interest.
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It was on 13 May, 2011, the Trinamul Congress ousted the CPI-M and came to power in Bengal. Trinamul Congress had made an electoral alliance with Congress and SUCI and bagged 227 out of 293 seats. Trinamul Congress alone got 184 seats, Congress got 42 seats and SUCI bagged one seat.
On the other hand, the CPI-M got 40 seats, RSP got 7 seats and Forward Bloc got 11 seats. Twenty seven ministers of the Left Front, including the chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, industries minister Nirupam Sen, housing minister Gautam Deb, finance minister Asim Dasgupta, lost the battle. Bhattacharjee was defeated by Manish Gupta, former chief secretary in Jadavpur while Nirupam Sen was defeated by Rabiranjan Chatterjee, a professor of Bengali of Bardhaman University while Asim Dasgupta was defeated by Amit Mitra in Khardah.
Nobody in Bengal ever thought that CPI-M could be defeated. CPI-M’s local, zonal and district committees used to run a parallel administration. In 1982, 17 monks and nuns of Ananda Margis were brutally murdered in broad daylight on Bijon Setu. CPI-M had unleashed a reign of terror across the state.
Mamata’s Banerjee’s sustained movement highlighting the misrule of the CPI-M led to the party’s departure.
The forcible acquisition of land to set up an automobile factory of the Tata Motors in Sungur and the setting up of a proposed petrochemical and chemical hub in Nandigram went against the CPI-M.
In the 2008 panchayat election, Trinamul got control over the zilla parishad in East Midnapore and South 24-Parganas. In 2009, Trinamul bagged 19 seats in Lok Sabha election while in 2010 it got control over the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. Finally, it won the Assembly election in 2011 and was successful in making the CPI-M politically insignificant.
In sheer desperation CPI-M made an electoral alliance with Congress in 2016 and was defeated handsomely. In the 2021 Assembly election, the party failed to get a single seat and at present it has only one Rajya Sabha member from Bengal.
After coming to power Mamata Banerjee carried out all-round development in Bengal. Healthcare in government hospitals across the state became free and the Swasthya Sathi card was introduced. Sabuj Sathi scheme was introduced to give free bicycles to the students between classes XI and XII in state-run, sponsored schools and madrasas.
Through Kanyashree scheme, girls were given scholarships. Altogether 64 social welfare schemes have been introduced.
Through Duare Sarkar, camps have been opened across the state to ensure that the people get benefits of the schemes. Administrative review meetings are being held in the districts to ensure smooth and on the decision.
The change of Bengal in the past 15 years is quite palpable and all-round developments have taken place in the district towns.