Kolkata, June 03: All those days that railway minister Mamata Banerjee spent away from her office in New Delhi to concentrate on the statewide civic elections in West Bengal have paid off.
The Trinamool Congress has swept the municipal elections, thus delivering a sucker punch to the CPM and also laying the foundation for a fiercely- contested assembly polls next year.
Mamata is impatient, though. Soon after her party won 36 of the 81 municipalities alone and 17 in alliance with the Congress, she demanded that the assembly elections be held forthwith claiming the ruling Left Front had lost the faith of the people.
She had a good reason — the Left had won only 18 municipalities.
In the previous civic dispensation, the Left
governed 55 of the 81 municipalities with Trinamool holding eight and the Congress 11.
Wednesday’s poll results show that the Mamata wave — some call it the anti-incumbency wave against the Left — had swept the Congress almost into oblivion. For example, in the all-important Kolkata municipality, Mamata’s party won in 95 of the 141 wards, while the Left captured only 31 wards.
The Congress, on the other hand, was decimated — it won just six wards. In fact, across West Bengal, the Congress won just six municipalities on its own.
But Mamata, far from celebrating, was preparing the ground for next year’s assembly elections which, if she wins, will almost certainly make her the chief minister of West Bengal. “The CPM has lost all right to continue in power,” she declared at a press conference on Wednesday. “Assembly elections should be held immediately. As per the Constitution, the matter comes under the Election Commission six months prior to elections. Since assembly elections are due in some states in October, it can decide that those in West Bengal can be held along with it.”
She also saved face for the Congress saying she wants a “grand alliance” between the two parties for the assembly elections. However, she did not define what “grand alliance” meant. “I am not a political astrologer,” she said when asked about the Congress as a possible ally for the state elections. “I can’t say anything about tomorrow. I am always open for an alliance. I am in favour of a grand alliance.”
In both Kolkata and in New Delhi, the Left Front had no option but to put up a brave face. CPM politburo member Sitaram Yechury said in the Capital: “It is a setback for us, we will analyse the results before saying anything more.” The bitterness was evident in Yechury’s harsh response to media queries. “It is we who are fighting the elections, not you in the media,” he retorted.
Yechury contended that the Left’s performance was better in the civic polls than in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, with a four per cent increase in the vote share. “ Let us hope the civic bodies are run better than the railways,” he said, taking a dig at Mamata’s absenteeism at her office in New Delhi.
But the Left’s decline is not a new phenomenon; it had begun to play out steadily ever since the twin issues of the Singur and Nandigram agitations against alleged forceful land acquisition by the Left government hit the national headlines.
Meanwhile, the first signs of Trinamool’s revival were seen in the 2008 panchayat polls when Mamata captured three zilla parishads from the Left including the troubled East Midnapore and South 24- Parganas districts.
The Lok Sabha elections in May 2009 were not any better.
The Trinamool Congress routed the Left in many constituencies and brought Mamata back on to the national scene as the United Progressive Alliance’s railway minister. From just the one seat that Mamata had won for the Trinamool in 2004, her party won 19 Lok Sabha seats in 2009, giving her immense bargaining power in the UPA. The only silver lining for the Left is that the civic polls are urban- centric and represent only 16 per cent of the state’s voters. The perception in West Bengal is that rural areas are more inclined towards the Left, and the suggestion from the Left’s partners is that the West Bengal government should focus on giving more sops to regain lost ground before the polls.
The Left was defiant that it would not ask for early elections.
“ There is no question of early assembly polls simply on the basis of this verdict,” said Biman Bose, secretary, West Bengal unit of CPM. Downplaying the electoral loss, Bose claimed only 85.33 lakh people participated in the civic elections, which is only about 16- 17 per cent of the total electorate in the state.
Bose said his party will review and search the reason behind the poor performance in the civic polls. “ We will adopt programmes that will provide direction to people,” he said. So distraught was the Left after the loss that state chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee refused to speak to the media.
The civic elections were also a prestige fight between Mamata and Union finance minister and West Bengal Congress chief Pranab Mukherjee. Earlier, the two sides failed to clinch a seatsharing deal in Kolkata.
In Delhi, Mukherjee congratulated Banerjee for her party’s excellent showing, and accepted the failure of the Congress in not coming up to expectations. “ I accept the failure of the Congress to perform up to our expectations. I accept the verdict of the people with all humility.” he said.
—Agencies