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Mamata
may fail to breach WB red fort
Subrata
Nag Choudhury
Kolkata,
May 8:
All the sound and fury that Mamata Banerjee had unleashed on Bengal
in the past few days may end in a whimper. The red citadel, at the
end of the hectic campaigning today, looks far from getting breached
though it’s somewhat shaken. The Trinamool-Congress camp’s
only hope may now lie in a miracle, faced with the cold logic of
mathematics and a spoiler in the BJP whom Mamata had ditched with
such alacrity.
There is a perceptible divide in the support bases of the two principal
contenders for power. The Trinamool Congress-Congress combine seems
to have an edge in districts like Kolkata, Howrah, North 24-Parganas,
South 24-Parganas, Nadia, Malda and Mursidabad and parts of Hooghly,
while the Left looks solidly entrenched in Burdwan, Birbhum, Purulia,
Bankura, Midnapore, Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar.
Midnapore is the district on which Mamata had set her eyes on in
a bid to break into Left’s rural heartland. She generously
gave new trains and sanctioned new tracks here and even devoted
a lot
of her energy to the area. She did succeed in the Panskura by-poll,
wresting the seat from the Left after a decade, but has lost her
advantage because of the absence of any organisational set-up.
Whatever may have been the means, a majority of the assembly segments
under Panskura today have been ‘‘recaptured’’
by the CPI(M). But diehard Mamata is still at it. In fact, she wound
up her electioneering at Midnapore and is hoping for some magic.
That’s exactly what her alliance needs while figures bear out
the CPI(M)’s clear edge. First, the Left Front has a clear
4 per cent to 5 per cent advantage (46-47 per cent) in vote share
compared to the TC-Congress (41-42 per cent). Then the Marxists
executed a masterstroke in order to rule out any chance of a swing
away from them — induction of Buddhadev Bhattacharya as Chief
Minister. He has breathed fresh life into the Left.
There was still
some hope of bridging the gap in the vote share by preventing a
split in the anti-Left votes. This was the reason why Mamata even
after walking out of the NDA had said: ‘‘We would like
to keep our commitment to the state BJP.’’ But the Congress
would have none of it, and now the BJP looks all ready to settle
scores. In 1996 when BJP was on its own, it had managed to attract
a 10% share in 43 seats. Much of this is said to be committed BJP
votes which is very bad news for the TC-Congress. And then it has
to worry about its alliance not going down well at the grassroot
level in many districts.
The CPI(M) is not totally without any headaches. The Party for Democratic
Socialism (PDS) floated by disgruntled Left leaders like Saifuddin
and Samir Pututunda is an irritant for the ruling front. Even smaller
partners in the LF, like the RSP and the CPI, have suffered splits
and desertions before the polls. Political circles feel the smaller
LF partners are in for a severe drubbing. While the PDS is an open
front, there is significant discontent within the CPI(M) which is
still suppressed. The PDS might provide this section a platform,
it is believed.
For the CPI(M), the abiding compulsion in this election is to ensure
an absolute majority within the front, a feat which will be hard
to achieve. Even when the party had a smooth sailing in 1996, it
barely managed to get an absolute majority (148 seats were needed
for this and CPI(M) alone got 150 seats). The party was down by
32 from the 1991 tally of 182.
There is a perception that the electorate has been unusually ‘‘quiet’’
this time. What this silence holds, the coming days will reveal.
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