Politics takes the back seat

West Bengal may be unusually calm before the polls, but what happens afterwards could be a major challenge for the Congress

Ashis Biswas Kolkata

In more ways than one, this has been an unusually de-politicised Assembly elections in West Bengal. More than the non-Left opposition parties, the ruling left front (LF) found a new, doughtier opponent confronting it: the Central Election Commission (CEC).  And, after the second phase of the five-day polling, it was possible to arrive at certain conclusions. First, the ruling LF and the CEC would end up salvaging a draw in their unprecedented face-off, which should cast a shadow on centre-state relations in the years ahead. The outcome of the polls would certainly see the 7th Left front in power again. This should   prove once for all that the EC Bihar experiment is not a foolproof solution against rigged elections.

No, elections in West Bengal are certainly not fought and won as in Bihar or parts of Uttar Pradesh, pace the CEC. On the other hand, the deletion in phases of the names of over 15, 00,000 enrolled voters in 2006, and the identification of Bangladeshis in the electoral rolls, demonstrated that the state administration has certainly been politicised over the years. The failure of the administration in rounding up people with arrest warrants against their names and other lapses earned it the justified wrath of the CEC. 

But for all this, the Left front does not rule Bengal by rigging elections, which is the bottom line. Factors like intimidation, roll tampering, and impersonation do play a role in some pockets. The CEC did its best to reduce this to a minimum and deserves all credit. Where Laloo Prasad Yadav and his Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) failed in Bihar, the left parties came out with flying colours.

In other ways too, the 2006 assembly poll was unusual. There were restrictions imposed on campaigning, which hit the ruling LF harder than its disorganized opposition, consisting of the  Trinamul Congress, (TMC), the Congress and the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). Graffiti and posters were banned, the use of loudspeakers was limited, much to the relief of long suffering taxpayers.

In terms of political substance, the polls were unusually disappointing. There were no major campaign issues either with the LF or its opposition. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s “industries for progress” was at best a tepid slogan, not the stuff to set the Ganga on fire. The rest of his arsenal consisted of pot-shots against the Maoists and Hindu fundamentalists. The TMC and the Congress lockers were even barer, containing nothing but uninspiring stuff quoted from audit reports on state finances and the familiar litany of complaints about education, health and law and order. Even here, Bhattacharjee, ever mindful of middle class concerns, had taken care to see that five communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) ministers did not get party tickets again, including those handling education.    

With the divided opposition failing once again to form a grand alliance, the LF, especially the CPI(M), found it easy to gloss over major issues confronting the people. Except for leaders like Union Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Sobhandeb Chatterjee (TMC), others in the opposition could not  corner the LF even on its glaring failures. Mukherjee harped on the fact that 37 per cent of the state’s population now consisted of landless labour, a damning indictment, but admitted that the Congress had no influence among them. The Left Front had. Their numbers had mounted to just over 70, 00,000 in the 2001 census, the poorest of the poor.

This indicated that the operation Barga, the centrepiece of land reforms in the state, had reached the end of its tether. By way of a reply, Bhattacharjee pointed out that some 4,500 villages out of a total 38,000 in Bengal were really poor and special attention was now being given. Nobody asked what had happened during the last 30 years that the LF had been ruling?

Similarly, Chatterjee made a telling point. Even admitting that Bengal has received between Rs 2,000-3,000  crore of industrial investment during the last five years, he pointed out that Narendra Modi-ruled Gujarat received over Rs 150,000 crore worth of investment in the same period! And even in all other indices of economic or human resources development again, Gujarat was far ahead of West Bengal!

But lack of effective campaigning and poor projection prevented the opposition from highlighting LF failures. Opposition leaders like Saugata Ray bemoaned fund constraints.  Nor did Mamata Banerjee, the most prominent opposition figure, cover herself with glory. Her speeches were high on emotion, but dismally low on concrete facts or substance.

Bhattacharjee was the front-office face for the ruling front. Generally, people responded more to his clean bhadralok image than to his speeches. However, Gujarat or otherwise, his visions of the future carried far more meaning for the youth than earlier claims made by his predecessor Jyoti Basu, if only because there is now continuing trickle of investments in West Bengal.

A major development was the death of two stalwarts within days of each other - Anil Biswas, State Secretary of the CPI(M) and  ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury, the Congress strongman in Bengal. Their loss will be felt within the LF and the Congress long after the polls are over.

With the Left expected to win in Bengal and Kerala, what is the future of Congress-Left relations within the UPA at the Centre?  Party secretary Prakash Karat, dealing with the charge that the Left has tried to communalise external relations, recently hinted that the Left will take up pending issues with the Congress with renewed vigour after the polls are over. 

Confirming this, a state CPI(M) leader said that among issues that will be immediately taken up at the UPA after the polls are problems relating to the public sector, foreign affairs, law and order issues arising out of the BJP’s rathyatra, and the like. There are also issues like the airport privatisation, the proposed Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into India’s retail trade sector that must be addressed urgently. Clearly tough times are ahead for the Congress leadership. Fortunately, the Bengal pre-poll campaign has been largely free from mutual mud slinging between the CPI(M) and the Congress, prompting charges from Mamata Banerjee that the parties are now brothers!

From statements made by Karat and West Bengal leaders, it seems that the present phase of conflicts and co-operation within the UPA coalition will continue for the time being. State CPI(M) leaders point out that the specific situation that brought the Left and the Congress together to keep out religious fundamentalists still exists. If they  win in  Bengal and Kerala again, Left parties will only feel more assertive in taking on the further depleted Congress, which spells fresh tensions.