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Cover Feature
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IS CPM ON ITS WAY TO YET ANOTHER TERM IN WEST BENGAL?
Rift turns polls colourful
Soumya Bandopadhyay says the civic polls will decide the course of the 2011 Assembly polls in West Bengal
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 Thank God! The alliance is no more! Otherwise the election to 81 civic bodies including Kolkata and Salt Lake would have turned colourless. There is a general ‘Feel Good’ wind doing the Left Front’s corridors. But whether a division of opposition votes really translate in the Left Front’s victory is a million dollar question. It will also answer whether this division is the only factor which has enabled the Left to be in power for nearly 33 years. Perhaps, it’s an opportunity for Mamata Banerjee and her party to negate this myth. This is the biggest attraction of these civic polls.
For Alimuddin Street satraps, who have forgotten class struggle and have turned arrogant, flamboyant and patronising towards party cadres, combating the stormy political weather of change, which started since the Singur-Nandigram days, was impossible. The Trinamool onslaught in south Bengal left the Left at its defensive best in the last three and a-half decades. The ever-growing blind and unquestionable mass support to Mamata had another truth to it. The masses were mainly demanding the ‘end of CPM rule’.
As people of different colours and creed have joined that stream, the Congress leadership too, acknowledging people’s wishes, got their state leadership to join that force. Whenever elections were held in the post-Singur-Nandigram period, the state Congress leadership had to obey the dictum of its high command — be it Panchayat election or by-polls to Bishnupur (West), Bowbazar or Sealdah or the Lok Sabha election. But, now the flute is playing a different tune. And the Trinamool, Pradesh Congress and the Congress high command, all have been conductors in this grand orchestra.
The question is, despite honouring all the demands of Mamata Banerjee till date, why did Congress president Sonia Gandhi did not force the state leadership to listen to the Trinamool supremo?
First, the Congress high command does not dictate the PCC on local elections and leave it to them, as the party’s policy and principles do not really reflect in these polls. And it is impossible for Delhi to take local factors into consideration. For once, Sonia Gandhi has left the issue to the state Congress leaders. Secondly, knowing full well that the state Congress leaders are against any disrespectful alliance, Sonia withdrew herself, leaving the ball in the state leadership’s court. It has a dual message - let the unhappy PCC leaders prove themselves, whether they can retain their seats. If they can, then a different scenario will emerge before the 2011 Assembly election. Congress leaders would not have to dance to Trinamool’s tune. An alliance, then, would be among the equals.
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If the first message goes to PCC leaders, the second one is for TMC. The examinee is Mamata Banerjee. She has to answer the questions she herself raised. Mamata has always tried to liberate West Bengal from the ‘Left misrule’. She is against any compromise on this. She has gradually increased her opposition to CPM. This political rivalry has divided the Bengali society into ‘Amra O Ora’ (Us and Them). It has become somewhat like Bangladesh, sharply divided between Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia. Like the fundamentalists in Bangladesh, Maoists are trying to fill the void here. Till date, this is the net outcome of her ant-CPM stance.
To achieve her goal, Mamata adopted another strategy, to sideline those who have been associated with her since the Singur-Nandigram days and remove them from the election process. She has simply ignored those who shared her dias during the Singur agitation or fought in Nandigram. But, it was simply impossible for her to ignore the Congress, although the Congress was not with her through the aforementioned struggles.
It is fact that Mamata’s struggle has been always aimed at the Congress. She has always tried to weaken the Congress ever since her departure from the grand old party. As the Congress became weak, she tried to negate its demands.
The Trinamool and the Congress had no tie up for the last municipal polls in 2005. The Left Front grabbed 54 municipalities, including Kolkata and Salt Lake, securing 61 per cent of the votes. The Congress got 22 per cent and bagged 13 municipalities, while TMC got 18 per cent and got 14 municipalities under its control. And in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the same Left front got only 43 per cent votes while the combined opposition of TMC-INC-SUCI secured 53.6 per cent of the votes. The storm had broken into a tornado for the Left Front. Mamata strongly believes that the tornado has not weakened and the civic polls will prove that.
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Comments
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JAIDEEP CHATTERJEE From DURGAPORE--
6/9/2010 1
I DO SINCERELY CONGRATULATE HER AND HOPE EARLY RECOVERY OF THE CHAIR WHAT COULD NOT OBTAINED BY THE GENUNES LIKE SIR S.N.BANERJEE,SHARAT BOSE,S.C.BOSE DUE TO WRONG NARROW,CLUMSY AND CHEAP GAMES OF POLITICS MADE AND PLAYED BY THOSE BENGALEES,BY WHOM THE STATE GOT ROTTEN AMONG THE RESTS.
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