Early results from state polls made it clear that the Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI-M, had been swept aside in a landslide that marks the end of an era in India´s modern politics. The victor was the Trinamool Congress Party of firebrand national railways minister Mamata Banerjee, the largest ally of the Congress Party in the federal ruling coalition.[break]
"This is the victory of the people against years of oppression," Banerjee told a huge crowd of cheering supporters outside her modest, one-storey residence in the state capital Kolkata.
"There will be end to autocracy and atrocities," she said, adding that she was "thankful and humbled" by the scale of the victory.
With counting still underway, Trinamool and its allies were leading in 218 of the state assembly´s 294 seats, with the Marxists ahead in just 67.
If the final result reflects the same margin, it would effectively consign the once-powerful CPI-M to the political wilderness.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Banerjee from Afghanistan, where he is on a two-day trip, to congratulate the fiery unmarried 56-year-old who is now set for a more influential national role.
"It´s a profoundly important moment for the people of the state who had an intense desire for change," said political analyst Sabyasachi Basu Roychowdhury.
Banerjee, a populist who casts herself as a champion of the poor, has ridden a wave of popular discontent with the communist government´s handling of the economy that has left industry in decline and the state neck-deep in debt.
"After 30 years it is like a revolution, a new chapter in the history of West Bengal has begun today," said 34-year-old Nandita Deb, a history professor in Kolkata.
Dhiren Chottopadhyay, a jute trader in Kolkata, compared Banerjee with Kali, the Hindu goddess of time and change.
"She fought and fought for years, never gave up and today she will be smiling the most," he said.
The Left Front had, until recently, won every election in West Bengal since 1977.
But straight successive losses in local and federal polls had left the communists struggling for survival.
"Accumulated problems led to this," said senior CPI-M official Niloptal Basu as the scale of the defeat became clear. "Now we have to go back to basics."
The anti-incumbency mood in West Bengal was fuelled by anger among farmers over being forced to sell fertile land holdings under a government job-creation drive to lure industry.
The drive to industrialise marked a shift from the communists´ early days in power when they gave land to some 2.5 million rural poor under India´s largest distribution scheme, breaking the hold of West Bengal´s land-owning elite.
But as land shortages grew with farms being divided among families and unemployment climbed, the government shifted gear and sought to bring back factories.
The diminutive Banerjee, whose mercurial nature and hot temper frequently land her in newspaper headlines, has promised to focus both on reviving industry and agriculture.
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