Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress was heading for a landslide win on Friday bagging 42 of the 294 seats and leading in 144 demolishing the 34-year-old Left citadel in
West Bengal in the Assembly elections.
Trinamool`s ally Congress won 12 seats and was leading in 30.
As per the trends, the Trinamool Congress could form the ministry on its own as the magic figure for government formation is 148.
Left Front major, CPI(M) has so far bagged 13 seats and was ahead in 24.
LF partner, Forward Bloc won three seats and was ahead in nine, while RSP and CPI, two other constituents were leading in 6 and 3 seats respectively.
Independents were leading in two and others in six.
Majors Left Front figures, including Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Finance minister Ashim Dasgupta, Industry minister Nirupam Sen, Housing minister Goutam Deb and IT minister Debesh Das were trailing.
Bhattacharjee drove to the Raj Bhavan in the afternoon and submitted his resignation to Governor MK Narayanan.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee dedicated her party`s stupendous victory to `Ma, Mati, Manush` drawing parallels with the freedom struggle and promised good governance, while saying that there would be an end to
"autocracy and atrocities".
"Not only in Bengal and India, people across the world were waiting for this verdict and we express our gratitude to all of them," Banerjee said.
Accepting the poll verdict, a joint statement by the chief minister and Left Front chairman, Biman Bose described the debacle as `unexpected`.
They, however, said the Left would play the role of a responsible and constructive opposition in the Assembly.
They would also ascertain the reasons for the defeat of the Left Front, they said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was in Afghanistan and Congress president Sonia Gandhi sent congratulatory messages to the Trinamool Congress chief as also Bangladesh premier Sheikh Hasina.
PTI
