All but one Left Front candidates now have the ignominy of losing their security deposit in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, a state which it had ruled continuously for 34 years till 2011.
Except for CPI(M)'s Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya who got 21.04 per cent of the votes polled in Jadavpur, no other Left Front candidate has been able to achieve the required 16.6 per cent of the votes to retain their deposit money of Rs 25,000 each, according to Election Commission data.
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In India, candidates for election to the Lok Sabha pay a security deposit of Rs 25,000. For Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates, the amounts are Rs 12,500 and Rs 5,000 respectively. Any candidate who fails to secure more than one-sixth (16.6 per cent) of the total valid votes cast would have to forfeit his or her deposit.
Candidates of the CPI(M)-led Left Front, which ruled the state for 34 years from 1977 to 2011, have been decimated to third and fourth spots in the seats it contested.
There were some candidates who managed to get close -- CPI(M) leaders Mohammed Salim with 14.25 per cent votes in Raiganj, Nepaldeb Bhattacharya with 13.91 per cent in Dum Dum, sitting Murshidabad MP Badarudozza Khan with 11.63 per cent votes, Nandini Mukherjee with 11.63 per cent votes in South Kolkata, but their efforts were not enough.
In most seats, the Left Front candidates have failed to reach double digits as far as vote percentage is concerned.
Registering its worst poll performance in over six decades, the Left Front was wiped off its bastions with no seats from the state.
The Left Front bagged five seats in this election -- four in Tamil Nadu and one in Kerala, where it rules. In Tamil Nadu, the CPI(M) and the CPI bagged two seats each in alliance with the DMK.
This is the first time since 1952 that the Left Front will not end up with double digits in the general election. Till now, while it had put up its most dismal show in 2014, winning only 12 seats -- 12 less than what it had won in 2009 -- its highest ever tally of 59 seats had come in 2004.