Kolkata, May 5 (PTI) The Left Front's vote share fell to 4.45 per cent in this Assembly election from 4.73 per cent in 2021, even as it managed to win one seat after drawing a blank five years ago.
This was a far cry from the 39 per cent vote share the Left Front had bagged in the momentous 2011 Assembly polls when it lost power to the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress after a 34-year rule. That year, the CPI(M) alone got 30 per cent of the total votes polled.
In the 2026 edition of the state polls, which saw a record voting of more than 90 per cent, the CPI(M) polled 4.45 per cent votes in the 293 seats for which counting was held.
It won the Domkal constituency in Murshidabad district while the other Left Front candidates had to bite the dust, as the BJP and TMC bagged the lion's share of voters' choice.
None of the other Left Front constituents could garner even one per cent of the vote share this election.
The CPI(M) secured second place in only two seats - Bhagawangola and Jalangi, both in Murshidabad district.
The Muslim-majority Murshidabad district bordering Bangladesh saw violent protests against the Waqf Amendment Act implementation last year.
The CPI(M)'s most-talked-about candidates, including senior advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, the party's central committee member Minakshi Mukherjee and SFI all-India joint secretary Dipsita Dhar, failed to come within the top two positions in their constituencies.
The Left Front fielded candidates in 252 out of 294 constituencies, with the CPI(M) contesting 195 seats, All India Forward Bloc in 23, CPI in 16, RSP in 16, and the RCPI and the Marxist Forward Bloc in one each.
The Left Front forged an alliance with the All India Secular Front (AISF) and CPI(ML) Liberation in this election, with CPI(M) state secretary Mohammed Salim saying that an electoral alliance with the Congress could not take shape despite the Front's earnest efforts.
The Congress, on the other hand, decided to go it alone in all the 294 constituencies in West Bengal and managed to win two, while the AISF retained Bhangar -- the only seat it won in 2021.
The Left Front, the Congress and the AISF contested the 2021 assembly polls under a seat-sharing arrangement. In that election, the Left Front and the Congress drew a blank.