Howrah by-election result: Concern for TMC

Results show that Mamata Banerjee's party is losing its stronghold in rural areas

Result of Howrah Lok Sabha by-election has given rise to a number of questions than  answers. This is the first occasion when both Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Congress fought a Lok Sabha vote without entering into any alliance. Though the victory margin of TMC candidate has gone down  to 26,965 votes this time vis a vis  37,392 votes in 2009 when they fought the then Lok Sabha election in alliance with the Congress.

The  overall  picture makes the ruling TMC leaders uncomfortable. First, contrary to their assessment, the CPIM) and the Left have started regaining ground in the heart of south Bengal. Of the seven assembly segments in Howrah Lok Sabha constituency, the CPI (M) went ahead in two (Sankrail and south Howrah). While south Howrah is industrial area, Sankrail is predominantly rural.

In 2011 state assembly election all the seven assembly seats under Howrah Lok Sabha constituency were won by TMC by huge margins. Moreover, two other factors are weighing heavily on the Trinamool leaders' minds: Congress got more than 10% votes in Howrah (96,727) and BJP did not contest this election. In absence of any alliance with Congress in 2014 general elections, the ruling Trinamool Congress will have to fight four corner contest in most of the seats in West Bengal, where both Congress and BJP might spoil the party for TMC by undercutting it. Omprakash Mishra, a senior vice president of state Congress unit, is emphatic, "If we go down, we will make sure that the TMC also suffers the same fate."

The Trinamool supremo and Chief Minister of the state Mamata Banerjee tried to underplay the growing importance of electoral alliance by saying that "We fought and won the battle on our own. This is a verdict favouring ‘Ekla Chalo Re (go it alone)’."But the result of recent by-election in three assembly seats in the state showed that without having any meaningful alliance even the ruling TMC is unable to win many seats.

Like in 2008, this time also Trinamool Congress has decided to fight the ensuing Panchayat election on its own. Abdul Mannan, a senior Congress leader who looks after the party's rural organization, admits that with the armed goons at their disposal and with tacit support of the local police, the TMC activists are terrorizing the candidates and supporters of other opposition parties, so that a good number of the seats would go their way uncontested. "Then in 2014, if the Congress high command approaches Mamata for alliance, it would get a raw deal as she would be able to prove that our influence is insignificant in most parts of south Bengal."