Trinamul Congress supporters celebrate outside the CPM’s Alimuddin Street office. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Calcutta, June 2: One of the biggest blows the Left has suffered in these civic polls is its rout in Bengal’s so-called Red Citadel that had resisted the “winds of change” in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

The six districts of Burdwan, Birbhum, Hooghly and Maoist-hit West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia had given the Left 11 of the 15 parliamentary seats it won last year. In the civic elections, the CPM has won just six of the region’s 33 municipalities.

Asked about the debacle, CPM state secretariat member Mohammad Salim said: “It’s true that we did well in these areas in last year’s parliamentary polls. Realising that, Trinamul began launching attacks on our supporters, set houses on fire and created anarchy and terror in these places over the past one year.

“That’s the reason the Red-belt votes got dented. They will increase such attacks now keeping in mind next year’s Assembly elections. We will have to find a way to counter their terror and recover lost ground.”

The Telegraph had reported in the run-up to the civic polls that if the Left had any hopes of launching a fight-back on May 30, it must do well in the Red Citadel.

Even during the 2009 parliamentary polls, though, the Red belt had thrown up indications of change, as reflected in the Assembly segments from where the Left had trailed and the impact of an unofficial alliance between the Congress and Trinamul in some areas.

The CPM will be upset at its poor civic tally in Burdwan district, a party bastion that has produced politburo or central committee members like Nirupam Sen, Benoy Konar and Madan Ghosh.

Of the six municipalities that went to the polls in Burdwan, the CPM has lost four, all located in the district’s agricultural zone. On Konar’s home turf of Memari, where the CPM held 15 of the 16 civic seats, it has drawn a blank this time, with Trinamul and the Congress winning 12 and four, respectively.

The CPM will also struggle to accept its score of zero in Katwa municipality though the Congress has held the civic body for two decades. The last time, the CPM had won two seats there.

In Hooghly district, where 12 municipalities went to the polls, the CPM has won only Arambagh. This time, areas along the Ganga have turned their back on the Left, which had won nine municipalities in Hooghly in 2005.

In Birbhum, the CPM has lost in all the three municipalities — Bolpur, Suri and Rampurhat — failing to turn its fortunes around after last year’s defeat in the Birbhum parliamentary constituency.

CPM leaders are blaming the Left’s defeat in eight of the 12 civic bodies in West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia on an “unofficial alliance of the Congress and Trinamul’’.

“In West Midnapore’s Ghatal, Ramjibanpur and Kharar, we lost to an Opposition mahajot (grand alliance) at the ground level. The same thing happened in three municipalities in Bankura and two civic bodies in Purulia,’’ a CPM state committee member said.

The CPM leadership fears that as Trinamul prepares for the 2011 Assembly polls, it would be encouraged to try and wrest huge chunks off the Red Citadel.