Mamata Banerjee wins West Bengal Assembly elections

West Bengal home to 90 million people and the city of Kolkata Trinamool Congress Party ( TMC)  returned to power with 200 seats out of 294 as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party failed to win a key state in  the assembly elections held amid record Covid-19 deaths and cases. Despite the defeat, West Bengal vote saw the BJP nearly 80 seats to become the main opposition party. In the 2016 vote, the party had won just three seats there.

TMC led by the state’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the leader of West Bengal for a third time, is also India’s only woman chief minister. Mamata Banerjee, a fierce Modi critic who has been accused of focusing on polls rather than the pandemic. Elections also went ahead in Assam, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala states as well the territory of Puducherry. BJP only held power in the north-eastern state of Assam but failed to make major gains elsewhere.

Celebrating the win, Ms Banerjee said West Bengal had saved India with the result and tackling Covid-19 would her first priority.

India has recorded more than 19 million cases of coronavirus, second only to the US and also confirmed 218, 000 deaths. For the last 10 days, daily cases in India have crossed 300, 000 daily with 360, 000 new cases and 3, 417 deaths on Monday. On Sunday  India set a new record for daily deaths  with 3, 689 recorded with hospitals overwhelmed facing dire shortages of beds and medial oxygen with several Indians resorting to social media for help.