Events & Issues
New Delhi, 14 April 2022
West
Bengal Politics
CHURNING
IN OPPOSITION CAMPS
By
Sagarneel Sinha
It is going to be a
year this May since Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress returned back to power
in West Bengal with a brute majority and stopped the resurgent Bharatiya Janata
Party to only double digits. After the Assembly elections, the ruling TMC has
only consolidated its strength across the State, as seen in the by-elections
and civic polls held later. On the other hand, the BJP has been only steadily
losing the momentum gained earlier.
In the last civic
polls held in February, the TMC rebels contesting elections as independents and
emerging as the second largest political bloc in terms of seats, is a
confirmation that the Opposition is weak and the party itself is the Opposition
on the ground. The TMC, unlike the previous ruling party CPM, doesn’t have a
proper organisational hierarchy and is led on the ground by different leaders
leading to many factions -- and all these are uniting under the banner of
Mamata Banerjee, who is the first and last word in all party affairs. The
recent violent massacre in Rampurhat of Birbhum district, where eight people,
according to official figures, were burnt to death, is a result of this factional
rivalry within the party.
With the absence of
an active Opposition, particularly more in the last one year, the TMC workers
and local leaders have gained additional strength and are more interested in
building their own empires in their areas. Their dominance is challenged mainly
by their own party leaders belonging to other factions. To be fair, internal
violent factional rivalry within the TMC isn’t new, but the barbaric Rampurhat
massacre shows what’s going very wrong in the State.
Now, there is a case
similar to Hathras of Uttar Pradesh, in Hanskhali of Nadia district where a
minor is allegedly gangraped at the residence of the son of a local TMC leader
and her body was forcefully cremated, as alleged by the family, even before the
death certificate was issued. More shocking is Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s
insensitive question whether this was a “love-affair”!
Prior to Hanskhali
and Rampurhat, a Muslim student leader named Anis Khan belonging to Abbhas
Siddiqui’s Indian Secular Front was allegedly murdered by men in police
uniform. This incident has also put Mamata’s government on the backfoot. The
family of the deceased student leader, who earlier was also associated with
Left politics, has been demanding a CBI inquiry, clearly indicating that they
don’t have faith in the ruling dispensation. This case brought the Left students
and youth unions on to the roads demanding justice for Anis leading to
crackdown on youth Left leaders such as Minakshi Mukherjee by the TMC
government.
Amid all these
horrible incidents and the complete dominance of TMC, there is a churning going
on which can’t ignored. There has been a growing dissatisfaction among Muslims,
the core-vote bank of TMC, against the party and the administration. The
nomination of Babul Supriyo, former Union Minister in Narendra Modi government,
for the BallygunjAssembly seat by-poll, hasn’t gone well with a section of
Muslim voters. That they are unhappy can be confirmed from statements of TMC General
Secretary and Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee saying that the candidate is
Mamata Banerjee, not Babul! Notably, in the Rampurhat massacre both the victims
and perpetrators belonged to the Muslim community.
On the other hand,
the CPM, the party which once ruled the State for 35 years consecutively, is
trying to revive by cashing in on the growing Muslim dissatisfaction against the
TMC. In the last Assembly poll, the Left party for the first time failed to
open its account in the State. Since 2009 Lok Sabha polls, CPM-led Left Front
has been declining and went down further after the debacle it faced in the 2016
Assembly polls, where the Left Front suffered due to CPM’s wrong decision to
ally with the Congress.
Significantly, the
Left in recent times has been showing some improvements. In the Kolkata
Municipal Corporation, the Left polled more votes than the BJP despite
contesting a lesser number of seats than the saffron party. The Left also
polled 14% votes, more than BJP’s 13%, in the recent elections to 107 civic
bodies, where there were countless allegations of rigging and attacks on
Opposition candidates and leaders by TMC workers and supporters. Importantly, the
combined share of Left’s votes in the last Assembly polls was only 6%!
Notably, what adds to
the new calculations being made is that the CPM has made its Muslim face
Mohammad Salim the new party State secretary. This is the first time that a
Muslim has been given this post by the West Bengal unit of the party. It comes at a time when there have been murmurs
of growing Muslim dissatisfaction against the ruling TMC. Plus, Salim has been
known for his anti-TMC stand. The Muslims were once the core-voters of the Left
Front. But later dissatisfaction grew as was seen in the late 1990s, but a
large section of the community kept voting for it. The community started to
move towards TMC in 2008 rural body polls after their dissatisfaction against
the then Left Front government increased.
True, that there is a
growing dissatisfaction but to assume that Muslims will abandon Mamata quickly
is naïve. One of the main reasons for TMC’s massive victory in last year’s Assembly
polls is the massive consolidation of the Muslim vote, which accounts around
28% of the State’s population, behind the party.
In the recently-concluded
CPM Party Congress at Kannur, the Left party inducted Ram Chandra Dom, the State’s
former Lok Sabha MP from Birbhum district (winning six consecutive times) and a
Dalit face of the party, into the Politburo, the highest decision-making body. This
is the first time that the party has inducted a Dalit into the Politburo. Apart
from this, the Left party has inducted tribal leader DebalinaHembrom of Bankura
District and Sumit De of Nadia into the Central Committee. Importantly,
the BJP was leading in both Bankura and Nadia districts in the last Assembly
polls.
It can be seen that
the CPM is trying to wean back the votes of Muslims, tribals, Dalits and other
sections which it lost to the TMC and BJP. That’s why the Left party at its
worst time finally has been quite serious in bringing new faces into the party
leadership. However, the BJP is still the main Opposition in the State,
although it now faces a threat from the Left. Obviously, the TMC can have some
relief as the political fight is now between BJP and Left to become the main
Opposition in the State.
There is a churning
in the Opposition camps to emerge as the credible alternative against
Mamata-led TMC and it remains to be seen who is the victor. For now, the TMC
has no big political threat but overconfidence is giving birth to many
troubles, which may cost the party heavily, as witnessed in 2019 Lok Sabha
polls. ---INFA
(Copyright, India News
& Feature Alliance)
|