Election 2009: West Bengal Analysis

The Sunrise happened for the opposition when Biman Basu claimed the “Surjodoy(Sunrise) of Nandigram” and that to was ignited by the egotistic CM by bifurcating “Amra Ora” (We and They) and giving priority to “Party over State”. Though the left has done the same prioritization for decades, they became naked in Nandigram issue.

Nandigram cost a lot for the left in the 15th National Election. Not only the mandate of farmers, but also the minority (most of the victims were Muslims) vote bank shifted towards the TMC-INC for this issue. It was a blunder and opposition didn’t leave any stone unturned to capitalize the sensitive issue.

CPM tried to gain the reputation back with Tata in Singur. It was almost done, but at the final moment crazy Mamatadi intervened. Another mistake by Left was made there. They could have done some negotiation for the betterment of the state, but they allowed TMC to make a mess of the situation, so that people can blame them. This is what they did for decades; criticize center and do no work. This time they tried to do something, but as they don’t have the experience to do that they messed up.

These two phrases “Singur and Nandigram” wiped out the stable Left front from West Bengal. The main reason is the radical shift of party polarization in West Bengal. The Communist party was a party for the poor, farmers and intellectuals and now that portion is in favor of TMC. TMC tried in many ways to capture the vote bank of common people, first tying up with BJP. In 1999 election they did fairly well capturing 8 seats in National Election, most of them were the seats of Kolkata, but failed to get the rural and Muslim votes. Thus they switched the ally in the assembly election in 2001 and tied up with INC. They got few seats but not as much as they expected, so TMC turned to BJP again in the 14th National Election in 2004. It was a disaster and Mamata had to pay for her whimsical attitude. TMC has only 1 seat in Parliament (that to of Mamata) and in the 2006 assembly they performed poorly with BJP and came back to INC on 2009 National Election.

Despite the dilly dally TMC managed to have a clean sweep this time, young people are literally unhappy on Mamata for the Singur issue which hampered the industrialization process in WB, for which the state had pay and will have to pay a lot. But why people have given mandate for her?

Here goes my analysis.

1) The Minority Vote Bank: In the whole country the Muslim voters are shifted to Congress (INC) and in the state that has been aggravated by the Nandigram issue and the national report that shows the financial status of the minorities in WB are deplorable and worst in the whole country.
2) The Lower Cast votes: This vote bank shifted to INC-TMC. They placed couple of dalit candidates and managed to get a major portion of SC-ST votes.
3) Farmers and Lower class: They were the original CPM supporters, turned to TMC as CPM has gone for development and TMC occupied the vacant place with its agenda “Ma-Mati-Manus”. That is a major swing against CPM in this election due to erotic land accusation policy.
4) Urban Voters: The urban voters started shifting to Non-Left teams years before due to the poor development and Left policies. This election there was many factors against Lefts.
• They don’t want to be in the center but never leave a chance to embarrass the ruling party (Like they did with the Nuke deal).
• They ask vote against Congress and support congress in center.
• They had no agenda but tried to form third front with some selfish regional parties who have no principal and can do anything for their vested interested. Any rational voters will not vote for a Third Front where Mayabati was projected as PM.
• They always tried to put the communal forces (BJP) away which helped Congress to get more popularity as INC is better projected as secular party than any other regional parties.
• The arrogance and egotist attitude of the Lefts for their unprecedented enjoy of power without an opposition have become huge anti-incumbent factor this time which in turn helped the TMC-INC to swing the vote in their favor.
• People are not happy with the intellectual Politburo of Lefts and what they did with Somnath after the no-confidence motion against Congress and how they stopped Jyoti Basu not to be the PM in 1996. Left is still paying for their historical blunder and will continue to pay unless they change their mindset.

What will happen in near future.

TMC will have the Rail ministry and couple more small portfolios in the cabinet. They will try to do some visible development before the assembly election in 2011. They will continue with the agenda “Krishi bachiye Silpo chai” – Agriculture first then Industrialization. They will continue with INC in assembly and is they don’t score self negative goals, its just a matter of time Mamata will be next PM of WB.

Left will not go for any land accusation in next two years. They will play a safe game and will try to break the coalition of TMC and INC (though it will be hard as left is not required now in center and Mamata is getting good support from INC central leadership, specially Pranab Mukherjee is making a difference). Left will try to make maximum development in state and pass some policies for the minorities to regain the Muslim vote bank. They will also try to capture their rural base in panchayats level by some reformation in party level.

But despite that, it something magical does not happen, unequivocally TMC will come in power in State. But it is good for WB as both the parties will try to reform and the state will have actual development. Good for the ignorant Bengalis who will be given special attention.
The bad part will be the violence and riots. The CPM cadres will not allow the unprecedented supremacy of TMC-INC. At the cost of those innocent victims West Bengal will have the change in the political era in near future.