Calcutta, Feb 19: A possible split in the Congress vote in West Bengal resulting from the split in the party gives a clear edge to the ruling Left Front in the state and its leaders are optimistic that the front will be able to increase its tally in this Lok Sabha elections. In the dissolved Lok Sabha it had 33 MPs.In the 1996 polls, there was a four per cent swing of popular votes in Congress's favour which helped the party to increase its tally from five in 1991 to nine out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. It polled 42 per cent, while the Left Front's share came down to less than 50 per cent for the first time since the eighties. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) polled around seven per cent votes but failed to bag any seat.
Among the Left Front partners, the CPI(M) had 23 seats followed by RSP with four and the CPI and All-India Forward Bloc with three seats each.
In 17 constituencies the difference between the winning candidate and who came second was less than five per cent. Ten of thoseseats went to the CPI(M), five to the Congress and one each to the RSP and Forward Bloc. Had the Congress remained united this time and there been a three per cent swing against the Left parties in favour of the Congress, all the 10 CPI(M) seats and the one RSP and Forward Bloc seats would have gone to the party taking its tally to 21, i.e. half of the seats from the state. The split in the Congress would preclude this, observers believed.
Out of the 33 seats the Left Front won, it secured more than 50 per cent of the polled votes in only 14 seats -- nine went to CPI(M), three to CPI, which included home minister Indrajit Gupta, and one each to the RSP and Forward Bloc. CPI(M) leader Somnath Chatterjee won the Bolpur seat securing 60.55 per cent of polled votes, while his comrade Rupchand Murmu won from Jhargram bagging 60.18 per cent. On the other hand, only two Congress candidates secured more than 50 per cent votes -- Mamata Banerjee (52.51 per cent) and Ajit Panja (51.98 per cent) -- and this time bothof them are fighting as Trinamool Congress candidates.
Many political observers believe that the votes that the Congress got in the last elections included votes `against' the Left Front which was in power for two decades. Such negative anti-establishment votes are likely to increase this time resulting in a further decline in the Front's votes.
Both the Congress and the Trinamool leaders claim that they would be able to bag the majority of anti-Left votes. "Our tie-up with the Bharatiya Janata Party is giving us the opportunity to bring to our fold such votes as there is a positive shift in the voters' sympathy towards the BJP in the country and the state is no exception. Moreover, it is we who fought against the misrule of CPI(M) and not the Congress," said the Trinamool Congress chairman Pankaj Banerjee.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
