West Bengal: Mandate for Change

The same issues - security in land rights and livelihood concerns - that have driven voter preferences in rural West Bengal since 1977 were present in 2009 as well. The difference this time was that the rural electorate, historically the base of the Left Front in the state, shifted its support from the LF to the All India Trinamool Congress. This explains the devastating defeat of the LF in the Lok Sabha elections.