This round of assembly had many firsts, not the least among them being Mamata Banerjee emerging as thefirst female CM of a major state to win a third successive term in office. While she did that in part by completely decimating the Left andCongress a blank slate for them inBengalbeing another first the Left chalked up its own first by winning asecond successive term inKeralaand that too with an even bigger win than five years ago, 99 seats compared to 91.
In a year in whichCovidhas hogged the headlines, it is telling that Health ministerK KShailajaor Shailaja Teacher as she is popularly known, had thehighest margin in Kerala of nearly 61,000 voteswithCM Pinarayi Vijayan(incidentally the oldest of the CMs in this round) a distant second on this count.