Lost cause: Mamata Banerjee's defiance risks stoking lawlessness in Bengal

In defeat, Mamata Banerjee has underlined the violent nature of politics in the state of West Bengal, over which she presided for 15 years. By refusing to observe the conventional norms of electoral democracy and tender her resignation to the governor after her party lost in the recent Assembly elections, she is stoking the venomous nature of political contestations being played out in the streets between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The murder of BJP leader Suvendu  Adhikari’s aide is not a reassuring signal. Though the TMC has clarified that it had nothing to do with this incident, the fact that it occurred at all indicates the turmoil.

 

Indeed, Ms Banerjee has only magnified her status as a sore loser and perhaps an ignorant one; she has no constitutional locus standi to continue in office, mainly because her term is tied to that of the Assembly. Her refusal to resign makes no difference to the process. Article 172 of the Constitution stipulates that an Assembly shall continue for five years from its first meeting and no longer. That expiration date was May 7. In other words, a new Assembly will now be constituted. It is unclear how Ms Banerjee can disrupt this process through constitutionally legal means. She may be relying on her reputation as a political maverick to defy the conventions — just as she did in her days in opposition to the Left Front. Ms Banerjee has chosen to project herself anew as a “street politician”. But while that brand of disruptive politics may have served her well with an electorate tired of 34 years of Left rule, it does not befit a politician who should have acquired the gravitas of restraint after a long stint in office. By refusing to observe the guardrails that sustain democracy, she is falling prey to the same nature of transgressions of which she is accusing her opponents.

 

Ms Banerjee’s contention is that the election has not been conducted fairly and that central forces were misused to capture booths and influence the outcome. Her party had made the controversial Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which ultimately dropped 2.7 million voters from the roll despite Supreme Court intervention, a key campaign issue. Though the scale of the defeat — 80 seats to the TMC against 207 seats to the BJP — suggests a strong anti-incumbency current, post-poll analysis points to some merit in her complaint. In several seats that the TMC lost to the BJP, scrutiny based on results published by the Election Commission of India showed that the BJP won by fewer votes than the number of names deleted from the rolls ahead of voting. This includes Ms Banerjee’s own 15,505 margin of loss in Bhabanipur, which saw about 51,000 SIR deletions. Of course, it is impossible to assume that all voters deleted from the roll would have voted for the TMC, but the pattern undoubtedly deserves more examination. Ms Banerjee is within her rights to file an election petition before the high court within 45 days of the results being announced or a writ petition before the Supreme Court on the integrity of the process. She would be better advised to follow these routes rather than resort to the kind of shrill street politics that West Bengal cannot afford.