Calcutta, May 21: Chup chaap, phule chhap!

That was the slogan coined by Mamata Banerjee after she broke away from the Congress, floated Trinamul and appealed to the electorate to vote in favour of her party’s flower and grass symbol in the 1998 Lok Sabha polls.

Ten years on, the Nandigram voters who stormed back to their villages last November with the help of armed CPM cadres turned their backs on the party, giving Mamata a thumping win.

It was the turn of men and women, “disgusted with the CPM for creating trouble every second day in Nandigram”, to hit back by stamping on Mamata’s flower symbol, a CPM insider said.

The party lost three of the four zilla parishad seats in Nandigram to Trinamul.

It also lost all the parishad seats in Haldia, Sutahata and Mahishadal, the area earmarked by the government for a proposed shipyard.

Of the 53 seats in the East Midnapore parishad, Trinamul has 35. It had got two in 2003.

CPM district secretariat member Ashok Guria said: “It’s unfortunate that the people we counted upon conspired against us. The people we helped return home peacefully didn’t vote for us. We had been with these people throughout. We have to find out why they didn’t support us.’’

“Even in Khejuri, our stronghold, we lost a seat,” a shocked Guria said.

Days after the armed recapture of Nandigram by CPM cadres, the chief minister had said that the Opposition had started the violence and were “paid back in their own coin’’.

Trinamul MLA Subhendu Adhikary, who oversaw the party’s poll preparations in East Midnapore, today said: “Now, we can say that the CPM has been paid back in their own coin. Its supporters had indulged in violence even a month before the polls. That led to discontent even among its party rank and file.”

A district CPM leader said the “land issue” proved decisive. “The apprehension of losing land made our supporters vote for Trinamul.”

Bapi Mondal of Southkhali, who switched his loyalties from the CPM last November, felt it “wasn’t fair” to create political space by eliminating the Opposition. “For 15 years I have been with the CPM but could not tolerate the strong-arm tactics. People did not want to part with their land but were being forced to do so. Land is too precious for everyone. It is not fair to terrorise anyone for protesting against its takeover,” Mondal said.

Local CPM strongman Lakshman Seth said the RSP and the Forward Bloc had helped the Opposition garner CPM votes. “We did not expect such a result. Our men had been misled and wrongly convinced that our government had bad intentions,” the MP said.