WB2011

West Bengal state general election, 2011

← 2006 18 April 2011 (2011-04-18) — 10 May 2011 (2011-05-10) 2016 →
294 seats
Majority party Minority party   Leader Mamata Banerjee Buddhadeb Bhattacharya Party AITMC CPI(M) Alliance AITMC - INC LDF Leader since 1 January 1998 6 November 2000 Leader's seat Did not stand Jadavpur (Lost)1 Last election 30 seats, 10.2% 233 seats, 79.2% Seats before 30 233 Seats won 227 62 Seats after 227, 77.2% 62, 21.0% Seat change 196 171
Assembly election results map (by district). Bright green denotes the districts won by Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, and Red denotes those won by the CPI(M).
Chief Minister before election Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee CPI(M) Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Trinamool Congress

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
CPI(M)

Mamata Banerjee
Trinamool Congress

A legislative assembly election was held in six phases between 18 April and 10 May 2011 for all the 294 seats of the Vidhan Sabha in the state of West Bengal in India. The Trinamool Congress won an absolute majority of seats. Notably, incumbent Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee lost his Jadavpur seat to Trinamool's Manish Gupta by just under 17,000 votes.

The election also marked the defeat of the longest-serving democratically elected Communist government in the world, ending the 34-year rule of the Left Front government, a fact that was noted by the international media.

This was the first legislative assembly election for the Vidhan Sabha since political agitation and violence in Nandigram and the Tata Nano Singur controversy, led by opposition party chief Mamata Banerjee, caused deaths by police firing amidst protests.

The Left Front had governed West Bengal since 1977. The election also followed the defeat of the Left Front in the 2009 general election, as well as its relatively poor showing in Panchayat and municipal elections.