In the recent West Bengal Assembly elections, of the Trinamool Congress (TMC)’s 36 most prominent leaders, including ex-Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, state ministers, and the Assembly Speaker, only 14 managed to win their seats and 9 lost in their booths in their own wards. Booth-level data published by the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) shows the extent of the TMC’s defeat at the hands of the BJP, which secured an outright majority for the first time in state history this year. Not only did a majority of sitting ministers, including Mamata herself, lose from seats that were once considered TMC strongholds, 16 senior TMC leaders managed to win in just one-third or fewer polling booths in their seats. Advertisement In Bhabanipur, for instance, where Mamata had won in a 2021 bypoll, she managed to win just 62 of the 270 polling booths, or 22.96%, against CM Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP. In Mamata’s home polling station No. 207, she won with a 63.33% vote share. But Adhikari was able to win as many as 197 booths with at least 50% of the vote share, including 44 booths with more than 80% vote share, en route to defeating the TMC supremo for the second consecutive Assembly election. Mamata, on the other hand, secured more than 50% of the vote share in just 54 booths, including 43 with more than 80% vote share. Four TMC ministers – Sujit Bose, Bratya Basu, Chandrima Bhattacharya, and Pradip Mazumdar – won less than 15% of the total polling booths in their seats. All four lost their seats to a BJP candidate. In another 8 seats, a senior TMC leader lost after winning between 30% and 40% of the total polling stations. In Hemtabad, Satyajit Barman lost to the BJP despite winning 45.2% of all polling booths, including 39.15% of booths with more than 50% of the vote share. Just three TMC ministers – Md Ghulam Rabbani, Akhruzzaman, and Sabina Yeasmin – won more than 80% of the polling stations in their seats. In another 11 seats, a senior TMC leader won between 35.95% and 69.25% of the total booths en route to winning their seats.