The massive victory of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress in the panchayat polls in West Bengal has sent signals to all the national political parties — the BJP, the Congress and the CPI(M) — about its consequences on the politics of the state, as also the impact on the Lok Sabha elections scheduled in March-April 2024.
For the BJP, which has 18 seats in the present Lok Sabha out of the total of 42 seats in West Bengal, the rural poll results are devastating from the standpoint of the coming Lok Sabha polls. The party has lost its strongholds in North Bengal, the five districts of Junglemahal, as also Matua-dominated Bongaon and Ranaghat areas which returned most of its candidates in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and many of which elected the BJP candidates even in the 2021 assembly polls.
The BJP, as usual, is hiding behind talk of ‘terror unleashed by the TMC cadres’, but even taking into account some contribution of strong-arm tactics by the ruling party workers in ten per cent of the seats, nothing explains the overall decline in BJP vote-share compared to both 2019 and 2021 polls. In 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP got its highest vote share ever in Bengal, at 40.32 per cent. Though it went down to 37.97 per cent in the 2021 assembly elections, but still it was adequate as BJP emerged as the main opposition in the new assembly, with no representation from the once powerful CPI(M) and the Congress.
But now in July 2023, eight months before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP vote share in rural polls has gone down to 22.88 per cent, as against 51.2 per cent of the Trinamool Congress. There has been a 15 per cent decline down the line, covering all strongholds till 2021 assembly polls, including the constituency of three BJP central ministers. This development has ominous signal for the BJP’s performance in 2024 polls.
Taking the coming battle for Lok Sabha elections in view, the results of the rural polls are nothing but disaster for the BJP. Home Minister Amit Shah only last month held a top-level meeting in Kolkata with the senior leaders and set a target of 35 seats as against the present 18. Nobody believed in the 35 seats possibility, but serious discussions took place about maintaining the present figure 18. Then, at the level of the central leaders, the target came down to 12 as they took into account the organisational capacity of the state BJP at the booth level.
Now, both the state BJP and the central leadership have started reviewing the results and it is found that there is not a single safe seat for the BJP in the coming Lok Sabha polls in Bengal. All the 18 seats are within winning distance of the Trinamool Congress. The BJP could not mobilise cadres in all the booths in the panchayat polls despite tall assurances given to the Home Minister last month. The reason was not TMC terror, but the absence of the requisite number of party workers.
The saffrons are not left with any fresh issue, which can excite the Bengal citizens. The central leaders have to look after other states where they expect BJP to get seats. Those states will be more important for them in terms of campaign. The Bengal BJP leaders may have to fend for themselves for quite some time now till they can prove that they are in a winning distance.
As regards the CPI(M) and the Congress, there is some improvement in their vote share. In 2023 rural polls, the Left Front, mainly the CPI(M), got 13.69 per cent votes and the Congress got 6.42 per cent. So together, the Left-Congress combine got 20.11 per cent. This was much better compared to the vote share figure of the CPI(M) at 4.71per cent and the Congress at 3.03 per cent in the 2021 assembly polls. That way, the CPI(M) vote share increased by 8 per cent.
But the paradox is that more the CPI(M) or the Congress gains in marginal areas, that helps the Trinamool Congress candidates to win, because the main opposition candidate is BJP and that is the share of anti-Trinamool votes. For the CPI(M), the comfort is that the party supporters votes which went to the BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, have started to come back, but more it comes, the more it helps TMC as against the BJP.
So there is a big dilemma for the state leadership, this limited turnaround is helping the TMC as against the BJP. As a part of the national policy, this erosion in BJP influence is welcome to the state CPI(M), but at ground level, this makes TMC more powerful. This dichotomy for the Left in Bengal will continue until is a big breakthrough organisationally when the CPI(M) is in a position to replace the BJP as the main opposition against the TMC. That is a long-term task and at the moment, the short-term possibility is nil.
For the Congress, the state party is equally at a loss. The grand old party had two members in Lok Sabha: Adhir Chowdhury from Berhampore and Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury from Maldaha Dakshin. Both the seats are vulnerable, especially Adhir’s seat. The Congress is set to lose both these seats even with the alliance with the Left if there is no real breakthrough, as the momentum is with the TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee now.
Mamata is a shrewd politician with strong roots at the ground level. As the opposition leader who is working hard for uniting all anti-BJP parties on a one-on-one fight formula, she may give a surprise by hinting at giving Congress one or two seats in Lok Sabha polls as olive branch for national concessions. The Congress high command, especially Rahul Gandhi, may not agree since Rahul is more concerned with the long-term revival of the party.
The TMC is organising July 21 as the Martyrs Day in Kolkata as the party does every year. Mamata may announce the TMC target for Lok Sabha elections that day. The slogan will be 42 in 42 and the campaign in the next eight months will focus on this. But TMC experts and political analysts have come to the figure of 36 as the minimum and 40 as the maximum for 2024 polls. The TMC organisation will be galvanised to achieve this objective to ensure that TMC emerges as the second largest national opposition party after the Congress, playing a key role in post-Lok Sabha poll developments. For now, it is advantage Mamata. (IPA Service)
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