1977 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election

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All 294 seats in theWest Bengal Legislative Assembly 148 seats needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Jyoti Basu Prafulla Chandra Sen Purabi Mukhopadhyay Party CPI(M) JP INC(R) Alliance LF Leader since 1964 1977 1977 Leader's seat Satgachhia Did not contest[b] Did not contest[a] Last election 27.45%, 14 seats New 49.08%, 216 seats Seats won 178 29 20 Seat change 164 New 196 Popular vote 6,568,999 2,869,391 3,298,063 Percentage 35.46% 20.02% 23.02% Swing 8.01pp New 26.06pp Alliance seats 231 29 20 Seat change New alliance New party 196
Chief Minister before election Siddhartha Shankar Ray INC Chief Minister after election Jyoti Basu CPI(M)

Legislative Assembly elections was held in theIndian state ofWest Bengal on 14 June 1977.^[1] The polls took place after the ousting ofIndira Gandhi's government at the Centre.

TheLeft Front won a landslide victory. The 1977 election marked the beginning of the 34-year Left Front rule in West Bengal, withCommunist Party of India (Marxist) leaderJyoti Basu leading the first Left Front cabinet. The election finally put to rest, the decade-long political instability that had begun since1967.

After theJanata Party won thenational parliamentary election in March 1977 the new government in Delhi opted to dissolve the assemblies in nine states where theIndian National Congress (R) had lost the parliamentary polls and call for fresh elections.^[2] West Bengal was one of these states.^[2] The Congress(R) opposed the dissolution of the assemblies, the incumbent West Bengal Congress(R) government petitioned theSupreme Court of India.^[2] The Supreme Court rejected the petition on 30 April 1977 and the West Bengal assembly was dissolved on order from the acting presidentB.D. Jatti.^[2]

Ahead of the March 1977 parliamentary election theLeft Front (a new alliance led by theCPI(M) consisting ofRSP,AIFB,MFB,RCPI &Biplobi Bangla Congress) and the Janata Party had contested with a seat-sharing agreement.^[2] With the assembly elections approaching, the two sides sought to build a seat-sharing agreement.^[2] But the negotiation turned fruitless, and the Left Front and Janata Party parted ways.^[2] The Left Front had offered the Janata Party 56% of the seats and the post as Chief Minister to Janata Party leaderPrafulla Chandra Sen, but the Janata Party insisted on 70% of the seats.^[3]

There were 25,984,474 eligible voters, voter turn-out stood at 56.15%.^[4]

In most areas the West Bengal assembly election saw a triangular contest between the Left Front, the Congress(R) and the Janata Party for the 294 seats across the constituency.^[2] The Left Front fielded 293 candidates; CPI(M) contested 224 seats, theAll India Forward Bloc 36, theRevolutionary Socialist Party 23, theMarxist Forward Bloc 3, theRevolutionary Communist Party of India 4, theBiplobi Bangla Congress 2 and 1 Left Front supported independent.^[4][5][6] Congress(R) contested 290 seats and Janata Party 289 seats.^[4] Left Front heavily campaigned on the massive-rigging perpetrated by the Congress(R) in the previous state election, state-sponsoredanti-Communist violence &Emergency-era abuses perpetrated by the government ofSiddharta Shankar Ray, with its slogan beingকংগ্রেসের কালো হাত ভেঙ্গে দাও, গুড়িয়ে দাও (Break off & smash the black hand of the Congress in Bengali).

Party		Flag	Symbol	Leader	Contesting Seats
	Communist Party of India (Marxist)			Jyoti Basu	224
	All India Forward Bloc			R. K. Haldulkar	36
	Revolutionary Socialist Party			Tridib Chaudhuri	23
	Revolutionary Communist Party of India			Bimalananda Mukherjee	4
	Marxist Forward Bloc			Pratim Chatterjee	3
	Biplobi Bangla Congress				2
	LF-Independent				1
Total					293

Party		Flag	Symbol	Leader	Contesting Seats
	Indian National Congress (R)			Purabi Mukhopadhyay	290
Total					290

Party		Flag	Symbol	Leader	Contesting Seats
	Janata Party			Prafulla Chandra Sen	289
Total					289

The Left Front won the election, winning 231 out of the 294 seats.^[7][4][5] The electoral result came as a surprise to the Left Front itself, as it had offered 52% of the seats in the pre-electoral seat sharing talks with the Janata Party.^[2][8] On 21 June 1977 the Left Front formed a government withJyoti Basu as its Chief Minister.^[8][9] The first cabinet meeting of the Left Front government ordered the release of political prisoners.^[10]

Provisional Central Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) leaderSantosh Rana was elected as an independent fromGopiballavpur.^[11]

• 1977 State Assembly elections in India
• State Assembly elections in West Bengal
• 1970s in West Bengal

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