Lucknow, May 5 -- The Samajwadi Party, a major constituent of the INDIA bloc, has distanced itself from the Trinamool Congress's defeat in the West Bengal assembly elections, describing it as a decisive "people's verdict" against corruption and misgovernance. Speaking exclusively to HT over the phone on Monday evening, SP national vice-president Kiranmoy Nanda said the writing was on the wall, which is why he did not campaign for any candidate in the West Bengal elections and had even informed Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav that the TMC would lose. Yadav had kept himself away from campaigning in the West Bengal elections this time. In a rare and unusually blunt public criticism of its INDIA bloc ally, Nanda said the TMC lost due to corruption which he had never seen in his entire political career. Though Yadav has often spoken in favour of TMC chief Mamata Banerjee, Nanda, who also acted as a conduit between Banerjee and Yadav, said, "This was the people's election. They had already decided to defeat the Trinamool Congress." "In West Bengal, there were serious corruption and atrocities charges against the TMC. People want development and a corruption-free government," he said. The veteran leader, a former West Bengal MLA and minister with Left Front roots, drew a sharp contrast between previous governments in the state and the TMC regime. "From 1952 to 2011, there was not a single major corruption charge against any government. But the TMC government from 2011 to 2026 indulged in corruption on a scale that people of Bengal had never imagined," he remarked. Nanda was careful to draw a distinction between the TMC and the SP as Uttar Pradesh heads into the 2027 assembly elections. He asserted that the Samajwadi Party's record remains unblemished. "There is no corruption charge against Akhilesh Yadav. During our government from 2012 to 2017, not a single finger was raised against us. We focused on development," he said, adding that the party's non-incumbency for nearly a decade works in its favour. Highlighting his own long-standing relationship with the TMC chief, Nanda revealed he had predicted the outcome and chose not to campaign for Mamata Banerjee this time, a departure from the past when she had campaigned for the SP in Uttar Pradesh in 2022. "This is not 2022, this is 2026. After 2021, the TMC government was involved in so much corruption that I never saw anything like it in my political career. I even told Akhilesh Yadavji that Mamata will be defeated," he disclosed. Nanda maintained that while alliance politics at the national level is one thing, governance and corruption are separate issues. "Being members of the INDIA alliance is a political matter but government is a functional institution. This election was between the people of West Bengal and the Trinamool, and the people defeated them." Addressing concerns about worker morale in Uttar Pradesh, he said the situations in Bengal and UP are entirely different. "Charges against TMC will not work against the Samajwadi Party. We have not been in power for the last 10 years. Every state has its own issues," Nanda added. The SP leader indicated that the party would draw appropriate lessons from the Bengal results while formulating its strategy for the crucial 2027 battle in Uttar Pradesh, where it aims to dislodge the BJP. Nanda's unusually forthright comments mark a significant departure from the usual restraint INDIA bloc partners maintain when commenting on each other's electoral fortunes, signalling that political pragmatism and state-specific realities are now taking precedence over alliance solidarity....