How the Bengal elections just increased Mamata's dowry

An elated Trinamool Congress is singing Ekla Cholo Re (Go it alone) after the municipal elections in West Bengal. The party nabbed 72 out of 129 seats and is determined to project that as a triumphant one year report card on Mamata Banerjee’s leadership. Under normal circumstances it would be tricky to read too much into local results from a grab bag of municipal elections. But stung from months of PR disasters, the TMC had a lot riding on these elections. As did the Left and the Congress who needed to prove that disaffection with the Trinamool was real and they were the alternatives. Now the results are out. “It has been clearly established that the Trinamool can fight and win elections in Bengal,” said general secretary Mukul Roy. “We fought against the CPI(M), the Congress, the BJP, and the Maoists.” Translation: None of them can stop us. So better get used to the new sheriff in town. But a closer look at the results shows that they carry lessons for all the parties. Why  Haldia matters to the TMC Result:  Left:15, TMC:11, Congress:0 [caption id=“attachment_334223” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“In the arranged marriages of convenience market of Indian electoral politics, Didi just became even more of a suitable girl. AFP”] [/caption] The Trinamool Congress is trying to put a positive spin on its loss in Haldia. It was just one hiccup in a string of victories.  Mukul Roy claimed that Trinamool has steadily increased its vote share there. But  as one psephologist pointed out on Bengali television the Haldia loss is like a fishbone stuck in the TMC’s throat. Haldia is just across the river from Nandigram where Trinamool started its great march to victory. Haldia’s CPM honcho Lakshman Seth is behind bars on a murder charge and the Trinamool had sent out a clear message that there was a new boss in town, its MP Subhendu Adhikari. “The poll results have shown that Mr Seth in jail is as powerful and popular as Mr Seth outside jail,” Seth’s wife Tamalika Pada Seth told The Statesman. “Adhikari’s attitude reminded us of Seth’s dictatorial ways in his heyday. The people of Haldia did not want another Seth,” an industrialist told The Telegraph. The CPM leaders who had largely left Tamalika Seth on her own are now falling over themselves to congratulate her. That’s not a very reassuring lesson for the party if its only hope for respite from the Trinamool juggernaut is to cling to the pallu of the wife of a strongman it once dropped from the party state committee as part of its “rectification” process. And the Trinamool has to realise sometimes it just cannot replace one strongman with another. Why Nalhati matters to the Congress Result: Trinamool: 8, Congress:3 Left:3 Nalhati was a drubbing for Abhijit Mukherjee who rented a house there and camped out for two months to lead the Congress campaign there. Abhijit is the son of Pranab Mukherjee and a newly minted MLA. Now he’s offered to resign as state Congress general secretary. Political insiders told the media Abhijit made the classic neophyte mistake – in order to assert his power he replaced Asit Mal, the local veteran leader with his handpicked man, a political lightweight. Though Abhijit has offered his resignation, he also complained about sabotage by party workers loyal to Mal. None of that is good news for a Congress struggling to find its footing in the state. Many Congress councilors in Nalhati had already shifted to TMC anyway. It means that the leaders it does have all over the state are now even more vulnerable to poaching by the TMC. But will the Congress take its lesson from Nalhati that family lineage does not trump grassroots contact? Unlikely. Abhijit said he had called his father with the bad news. Pranab-da’s response : “Babu, mon kharap koris na.” (Babu, don’t be disheartened.)  The State Congress chief has also hastily announced it will not blame Abhijit for the Nalhati debacle. Apparently the forgive beta Rahul syndrome runs deep in the Congress DNA. Why the Cooper’s Camp victory matters little to the  Congress Result: Congress:11, TMC:1 Left:0 The Congress got its thin sliver of a silver lining by sweeping the Cooper’s Camp board. That led its local honcho Shankar Singh to say “The Trinamool should take a lesson from today’s development. But if it wants to go it alone in the coming panchayat poll we have no objection.” That’s a wildly optimistic reading of the election results by the Congress given that Cooper’s Camp was the one exception in its increasing marginalisation in West Bengal politics. The TMC has made no bones about the fact that it considers West Bengal a two-party state where the fight is between itself and the CPM. It intends to everything it can to keep the CPM out of power and if the Congress won’t play along it will swat it aside like a fly. “Our party does not need the company of the Congress,” Gautam Deb, a Trinamool minister bluntly told the Bengal Post. “They had chosen to walk without us and have been shattered in the course.” Why Durgapur matters to CPM Results: TMC:29, Left:11, Congress:1 The steel city of Durgapur was a Left bastion but the Left’s defeat proved that Humpty Dumpty was well and truly broken and all of Citu’s men cannot put it back together just yet. The Left is reduced to complaining about intimidation and rigging and Trinamool’s “reign of terror” but that finds little sympathy among a population long used to the same tactics from the comrades. The CPM’s projected mayoral candidate Biprendu Chakraborty campaigned with police protection. He lost the election to a first time contestant from the TMC proving, according to the Telegraph, that “if the leader shows fear, so will the foot soldiers.” Trying to save some face after its loss, CPM spokesperson Mohammad Salim told the media that “In Haldia, people had seen Trinamool’s terror tactics over the past three years and hence found time to form an opinion about them. But they didn’t get so much time in Durgapur.” If that’s the CPM’s strategy against the Trinamool – watch, wait, and hope it will implode on its own – they seem destined for a long spell in the political wilderness. Dhupguri, another Left stronghold in North Bengal, also toppled with the TMC winning 11 wards against the Left’s 3, pretty much reversing their party standings from 2007. Why it all matters nationally In the last few months the Trinamool had been coming under increasing fire especially from the bhadralok intelligenstia. The cartoon fracas, Mamata’s storming out of a televised townhall meeting, the no socialisation with Communists diktat had all given the party a black eye and led to processions against them through the streets of Kolkata. But the election results in towns as disparate as Durgapur, famous for its steel, and Dhupguri, famous for its potatos, proved that Kolkata is far away and the TMC is firmly consolidating its grip on the villages and towns. West Bengal may not be thrilled by Didi’s tantrums but there is little appetite to go back to the Left Front and the Congress is perceived as irrelevant.  The BJP which won three seats is claiming that it’s gaining “political space” in Bengal now at the Congress’ expense. In Haldia, for example, it took third place behind TMC and CPM. But while the Congress and the BJP scrabble for third place in some pockets the overarching takeaway is clear. As the Telegraph headlined its coverage today: LINA (Left is no alternative.) “The six civic body polls should leave the Left worried and the Congress in two minds about going it alone again,” opined the Bengal Post. The Times of India was more circumspect saying  “if one considers the fact that the elections were held under Mamata rule, there is not much (for the Trinamool) to boast about.” But it’s hard to argue with victory. This does not mean that Mamata is ready to divorce the Congress just yet. But it does mean that she can dangle that prospect with greater conviction in front of both the UPA and the NDA or any Third Front that might come together. In the arranged marriages of convenience market of Indian electoral politics, Didi just became even more of a suitable girl.