Mamata turns Left to down, humbles Cong in Bengal

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Wednesday crushed West Bengal's ruling Left Front in civic polls seen as a trial run to next year's make-or-break assembly election, wresting the prestigious Kolkata Municipal Corporation and scores of urban municipalities in the state.

As thousands of Trinamool activists cheered their leader and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata and scores of towns, the party demanded an immediate assembly election saying the Left had lost the right to rule West Bengal. A shaken Left rejected the demand. The state's urban voters gave the thumbs down to the Left, which suffered a humiliating defeat although the major opposition parties, the Trinamool Congress and the Congress, failed to come to an electoral understanding