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THE Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front's return to power in West Bengal for the seventh consecutive time hardly came as a surprise. But the extent of the Red sweep, from the foothills of the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, stunned even the architects of the great victory. In an Election Commission-ensured `free and fair' poll, the mandate went overwhelmingly to the Left. Out of the 293 seats contested (election in one seat having been countermanded) the CPI(M) won 235, while the main Opposition parties, the All India Trinamul Congress and the Congress, won 29 and 21 seats respectively, and the others the remaining eight seats. (The Trinamul Congress later won the countermanded election and increased its score to 30 seats.) Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who spearheaded the election campaign, admitted, "I thought we would get more than 200 seats this time, but I did not expect so much more. In that respect this result was beyond our expectation."
Most analysts, including those within the Left, saw a two-thirds majority as attainable. The ruling coalition, however, emerged with a three-fourths majority; the CPI(M) alone, with its tally of 176, accounted for around 60 per cent of the seats in the Assembly. Preliminary analysis has shown that in this round of elections, the Left got more than 50 per cent of the total votes cast. This is the fifth time that the Left Front has won more than 230 seats.
Trinamul lost 38 of the seats it won in 2001, and won only nine new ones; from 60 seats in 2001, it was reduced to only 29. For the Congress, however, the difference between this and the previous election was not so glaring, but its tally of 21 is five seats down on 2001. ; Though it won five new seats, it lost 14.
The Left Front, on the other hand, despite losing 16 of the 199 seats it had won in the last poll, captured 51 new constituencies. Among the Left partners, the Forward Bloc (FB) won 23 seats, the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) 20, the Communist Party of India (CPI) eight, the West Bengal Socialist Party (WBSP) four, the Marxist Forward Bloc (MFB) two, and the Democratic Socialist Party one. Opening its account for the first time in West Bengal, the Left ally Rashtriya Janata Dal also won a seat. In this election, the CPI(M) fielded 107 new candidates, of whom 81 were successful. Of the 36 winning women candidates , 29 belong to the Left Front, and of them, 26 to the CPI(M).
There were some major upsets in all parties. Labour Minister M.D. Amin, Legislative Affairs Minister Probodh Sinha and Relief Minister Hafiz Alam Sairani, and Left heavyweights such as CPI(M) Chief Whip Rabin Dey, Rajdeo Goala and Shambhu Mandi lost. Senior Trinamul leaders Saugata Rai, Paresh Pal and Tapas Ray failed to make the grade. For the Congress, the biggest shock was the defeat of Atish Sinha, the leader of its legislature party. Other important losers included Abdul Mannan, Sankar Singh, Asit Mitra and former Kolkata Mayor Subrata Mukherjee.
The support for the Left cut across all class lines and the urban/rural divide. The results in Kolkata highlight this. In the 24 seats in Kolkata and its suburbs, the Left Front increased its tally of seats to 10, drawing level with the Trinamul Congress, while the Congress managed only four. The State capital had always been anti-establishment and never a Left stronghold. Since 2001, however, after Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee took over as Chief Minister and there has been a change.
Industrialisation
The efforts at industrialisation and securing investments for the State by Bhattacharjee and his trusted lieutenant, Industries Minister Nirupam Sen, have obviously not gone unnoticed. Major strides taken in infrastructure development and in sectors such as Information Technology (IT) and IT-enabled services, food processing, horticulture and agro-industries, have kindled the hopes and aspirations of the urban youth. In a survey conducted by the Indian Chamber of Commerce just before the elections, West Bengal was ranked as the third most preferred destination for investment after Gujarat and Maharashtra.
The Bhattacharjee/Sen duo aims to develop urban and rural infrastructure alongside each other. Addressing a press conference in the Alimuddin Street headquarters of the CPI(M) after the results were declared, Bhattacharjee said, "The message that the people have given us with their verdict is [that] we have to give even more importance to what we are doing and we have to succeed." He pointed out three basic tasks set before his government. First, to maintain the success achieved in the agriculture sector. Second, not to slacken the pace of industrialisation, and get more investments into the State. Third, the need for more emphasis on economic development, particularly to lift those still below the poverty line.
The government's industrial drive does not mean that it has given up on its basic ideology. "Not everything about liberalisation is right," said Bhattacharjee, "We are against the policy of hire and fire of labour and arbitrary privatisation. I believe socialism is a better system, but we live in a time where we have to work according to the market conditions." In an interview to a private television channel he had also averred that he was a "communist compromising with capitalism". Bhattacharjee and Nirupam Sen put a humane face on liberalisation. "People think that I am on one side and my colleagues are on the other [on the issue of industrialisation and foreign investment] but that is not so. There are differences of opinion that are discussed and sorted out. This is a healthy practice," Bhattacharjee said.
The industrial drive has paid dividends to the Left as far as votes are concerned, particularly in the industrial belts of Howrah and Hoogly. In Howrah, the Left Front won 14 of the 16 seats, out of which the CPI(M) got 11. Of the 19 seats in Hooghly, the Left got 17, of which the CPI(M) won 13.
This new face of the Left has not alienated its traditional rural support base. In fact, the Left Front has further consolidated its position in rural areas. In the economically backward districts of Bankura and South Dinajpur, it captured all the13 and five seats respectively. Burdwan district, the rice bowl and Left bastion of West Bengal, showed no sign of nervousness about the reformist agenda taken up by State Industries Minister Nirupam Sen, its most prominent leader. The Left improved its tally from 21 in 2001 to 23 out of the 26 seats, with the CPI(M) alone winning 21. Sen himself won with a margin of 35,242 votes against his Trinamul opponent. The Chief Minister won with a huge margin of 58,130 votes from Jadavpur, in the southern part of Kolkata.
To a large extent, the Left Front victory this time was Buddhadeb's victory. In fact, to many independent observers this election was the litmus test for Buddhadeb's reformist agenda. It was his personal charisma and clean image and his practical approach in preference to dogma that served as a beacon to many young men and even old fence-sitters. That is perhaps why, in spite of a very large turnout of voters (around 80 per cent), the Left Front vanquished any anti-incumbency factor yet again.
Fragmented Opposition
The Opposition, badly splintered and bristling with mutual jealousies and recriminations, was no match for the cast-iron organisation and trained election machinery of the CPI(M). The Election Commission scrutinised all allegations against the Left Front. The State police and bureaucracy were sidelined and the polling was phased over five long periods under close surveillance by Election Commission observers and the Central paramilitary forces.
Even in the Congress strongholds of Malda and Murshidabad, the Left could make inroads. Of the total of 30 seats in the two districts, the Left Front increased its share from 17 to 21. Of the 11 seats in Malda, the Left has now seven - the CPI(M) six, and the FB, one - while the Congress has four. In Murshidabad, the Left Front has 13 seats, of which CPI(M) has six, the RSP, five and the FB and WBSP one each.
The Congress was in certain ways unfortunate and in others unorganised. Days before the elections, Malda's Congress heavyweight sitting Member of Parliament (MP), former Railway Minister A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chaudhury, died after a brief illness. His absence was certainly a set back for the party. In Murishidabad, however, factionalism took its toll; the two official candidates of the party and sitting Members of the Legislative Assembly, Atish Sinha and Mayariani Pal, were defeated by independent candidates fielded by local MP and district Congress President Adhir Chowdhury. The long-standing feud between Sinha and Chowdhury cost the leader of the Congress Legislature Party his seat in Kandi, which he had not lost since 1991. The dismal performance of the party also prompted Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee to resign as State Congress president.
The story is more or less the same in all districts of West Bengal except Darjeeling. Even though the Municipal Affairs and Urban Development Minister Ashok Bhattacharya won by 74,971 votes - the highest margin in this election - the Left could manage only two of the five seats in the district. The hill constituencies of Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong showed no signs of rejecting the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) and its leader Subash Ghising.
"What else can be done?" Mamata Banerjee was quoted as saying as the results of Left victory poured in. This time she could not resort to her usual accusation of election rigging. Instead she reserved her criticism for the press for predicting the inevitable - "The Man of the Match in this election is the media," the Trinamul Congress leader said. Days later she came out with a conspiracy theory. "People have not rejected us. Instead we are victims of a deep-rooted conspiracy involving the State government, the Centre and a section of the media," she reportedly told party workers at a stock-taking exercise. She maintains that were it not for the Congress reluctance to accept her mahajot (grand alliance), the CPI(M) would not have had it so easy.
It has to be said that the CPI(M) has never faced any real challenge to its supremacy in the State. If ever there was an opportunity to capitalise on the anti-incumbency in the past 29 years of its rule, that was in 2001 when Mamata Banerjee's political stock was at the highest. But her mercurial temperament and whimsical politics alienated her support base. Moreover, her mindless opposition to anything that the State government proposed, such as the initiative to invite large-scale foreign investment, only sent the wrong signal to middle-class voters. The same people who looked upon her as the one to deliver them from CPI(M) rule turned their back on her for being anti-development.
New Ministry
The new ministry was sworn in at a huge public ceremony on the lawn of the Raj Bhavan on May 18 morning. While there were no surprises in respect of major portfolios like Finance (Asim Kumar Dasgupta), Commerce and Industry (Nirupam Sen), Health and Panchayat (Surya Kanta Mishra), Municipal Affairs and Urban Development (Ashoke Bhattacharya), Housing (Goutam Deb), Land and Land Reform (A.R. Mollah), Transport and Sports (Subhash Chakraborti) there were major changes in the departments of Education and IT, Labour and Environment.
Overall, there are 20 new faces in the current Ministry. The introduction of new faces and re-shuffling of Ministers brings a novelty which neutralises any possible anti-incumbency sentiments.
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