In its 34-year uninterrupted rule, the CPM has a real challenger in Mamata Banerjee.

The cover story in the Bengali edition of the world's only 14-language news magazine The Sunday Indian last month carried a cartoon with Kolkata's Writers' Buildings, seat of the Government of West Bengal, in the background. A full-blown Mamata Banerjee, chairperson of the Trinamool Congress (TC) in a spotlessly white cotton sari and Hawaii sandals is walking towards the building while Chief minister and CPI (M) Politburo member Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in an equally white dhoti and kurta walking out. The cartoon is captioned, 'The Inevitable Fall'.

Ever since the Left Front's strength in the Lok Sabha declined steeply from 35 to 15, most psephologists and political analysts were getting convinced that the era of its 34-year uninterrupted rule in this State would end in the 15th Assembly elections.

A big swing in favour of the TC and its ally, the Congress, was sensed even before the six-phase poll began on April 18. An ignominious defeat looked inevitable. It was clear to everyone, except incorrigible optimists among the CPI (M)'s followers, the LF would not win anything like the 235 (out of 294) seats that it captured in the 14th Assembly polls in 2006.

The dying politics and ideology of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin in the State did not seem to have revived the LF's fortunes since 1978 when, in the local elections, it failed to retain the majority of 38,000 gram (village) panchayat seats, despite the division of anti LF votes between the TC and the Congress, the two main opposition parties. The LF won 1,585 gram panchayats in 2008 against 2303 in 2003 and the opposition, mainly the TC and the Congress, won 1498 against 897 five years before.

In the 15th Lok Sabha polls, the two parties forged a poll alliance that paid rich dividends for the TC, which won 19 out of 42 seats against a single seat (Mamata Banerjee's) in the previous elections. The Congress retained its strength of six in the Lok Sabha, losing a seat (Darjeeling) to the Gorkha Janamukti Parishad-backed Bharatiya Janata Party, but winning a new seat in the Malda district. The Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist), a TC ally, won one seat while the Left bagged just 15 seats against 35 in 2004.

A break-up of voting figures in the 294 assembly segments reveals that the LF was ahead of the opposition in 103. The Lok Sabha poll outcome was a distinct reflection of a further decrement of LF's electoral base.

The trend continued. In elections to the 81 municipal bodies across the State on May 30, 2010, the LF could retain only 18 municipalities out of the 57 won in 2005. This was despite the failure of the two major opposition parties to agree even on seat adjustments in almost all the contests. The TC snatched 26 municipalities and the Congress seven from the LF. Four more went in favour of anti-LF alliance, while 23 municipalities acquired hung houses. Subsequently, however, there was a very marginal improvement in favour of the LF. During the Lok Sabha polls of 2009, the LF had a lead in 525 of the 1,766 municipal wards. But, in 2010, the Left had lead in 603 out of 1,791.

Left leaders from CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat and his CPI counterpart Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan to LF chairman Biman Bose kept telling the demoralized cadre that that the front had almost regained its lost ground and was poised for its eighth consecutive win. The claim has not been convincing.

Psephology, like astrology, has no precise scientific basis and poll predictions resemble gambling. But, Left-watchers close to the A.K.Gopalan Bhavan and the Ajoy Bhavan, national headquarters of the CPI (M) and the CPI respectively, feel that is rough going for the LF.