Trinamool-Congress storms Left's citadel

Voters in West Bengal have delivered a surprise this year, reducing the Left Front to a minority in the state and favouring the TC-Congress combine for the first time since 1977.

Sources in the Trinamool Congress (TC) partly attribute the success to the TC chief Mamata Banerjee’s slogan (see box), as she captured the spirit of a massive resentment in the countryside against acquisition of land by the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government and police excesses.

Singur (where the TC-led agitation demanding return of 400 acres to dispossessed small-holders out of 1,000 acres acquired for Tata Motors’ Nano project led to the latter’s exit) and Nandigram (where police firing killed 14 people protesting forcible acquisition of 20,000 acres for a chemical hub in March 2007) induced Banerjee to come up with her slogan.

She has promised to protect the rights of women oppressed at Nandigram, to save land from government acquisition favouring big business houses for a pittance, and to safeguard the democratic rights of the common man, claimed sources.

Her other major contribution, established through her agitation at the two locations, was to prove to people in Bengal that they could protest against the excesses of the Left and succeed, as she would back them.

“Earlier, Left supporters would collect the voter ID cards from perceived anti-Left families before elections and return them only after elections, or blockade booths in high-income, anti-Left areas. But in 2009, it did not dare to do these things, as she has given people the courage to protest,” claimed a member of her party.

Banerjee had allied with the Congress in 2004 but was reduced in those elections to just one seat for her party. In 2009, Mamata was helped by her excellent relationship with state Congress party President Pranab Mukherjee and her perceived proximity to Sonia Gandhi, said analysts.

Also, the adverse observations made on the condition of Bengal Muslims by the Sachar Committee report helped to create a situation in which the CPI(M) and the Left appeared to have lost the support of the minority community in Bengal. The Sachar Committee, in its report, described the condition of Muslims in Bengal as being one of the worst among states in India.

In her Kolkata South seat, Mamata Banerjee talked down the CPI(M), and her rival Rabin Deb, and claimed TC would do well, “as the people of West Bengal want change”.

The CPI(M) was also confident as it projected Banerjee as being against industrialisation, having driven out the Nano car factory from Singur.

“Everybody wants industrialisation and she (Mamata) is against it, so the people will reject her,” claimed CPI-M leaders.

Bengal’s voters thought otherwise.