The LF won 17 seats - the CPI-M got 15, and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and Forward Bloc (FB) one each in the polls.

'The result was quite unexpected. I thought people will accept our development drive but they voted for a change - a political alternative,' CPI-M leader in Siliguri and state's Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister Ashok Bhattacharya said.

He said: 'We will try to bring back the support of common people through our political programme. We tried to counter our opposition politically but people didn't vote for us. They chose the opposition force. We must learn a lesson from it.'

In the last Siliguri municipal polls, the ruling LF won in 36 seats leaving only 11 civic wards to the oppositions Congress, Trinamool Congress and other political parties.

The Siliguri Municipal Corporation is a continuation of the story of the Trinamool-Congress combine's continuing successes and the LF's fast eclipse in the state.

The LF, which has been in power since 1977, lost the rural body polls last year, before being crushed in the Lok Sabha elections as also civic body polls and assembly by-elections.