New Delhi (IPA Service): It is quite a loaded statement. Just after returning from Delhi, West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose, on his mission to apprise home minister Amit Shah about the violence in the state during the panchayat elections in which nearly 17 persons were killed in inter party clashes, said: “The darkest hour is just before the dawn. There will be light at the end of the tunnel. The only message I could get today is if winter comes, can spring be far behind. Good will happen in the days to come.”
Rhetorical or not, it is a covert warning for the ruling TMC and its supremo Mamata Banerjee. Certainly, Bose cannot be expected to disclose the discussion he had with Shah, but it’s not hard to guess that it must have moved around the strategy for fettering Mamata and replacing her rule, which had earned notoriety in their eyes as a failed administration.
The systematic targeting of the State Election Commissioner, Rajiv Sinha, by none else but Governor Bose and snipping barbs, well ahead of the panchayat elections, had sent a loud and distinct message that grounds were being prepared for a major intervention from the Modi government. While the governor is endowed with constitutional rights to have a firm look at the functioning of the state government, Bose’s unwarranted overenthusiasm is part of a larger, possibly malicious, design by the Centre.
Bose visited various places in West Bengal, particularly in the North 24 Parganas district, interacted with local officials, took stock of the situation during the polling and he met the family of an injured person and also visited him at a hospital. His gubernatorial conduct would certainly earn him some laurels, but at the same time gives rise to apprehensions about the intentions.
Undeniably, violence took place on the polling day. But unlike the past this time it was not widespread, being confined to some pockets. On Saturday, polling was held in over 61,000 booths for the three-tier panchayat elections. Ballot boxes were looted, set on fire or dumped in ponds at several places during the violence. The reports underlined that most of such acts were carried out by the BJP cadres and supporters. SEC in fact held re-polling at 696 booths in 19 districts.
To unravel the truth, one ought to have an insight in the demographic and political structure and combination of the area. As already reported, the TMC suffered more casualty than its political opponents. It is worth noting that with a sharp drop from the 34% of seats won uncontested in 2018 election, the TMC could only secure below 10% of the seats uncontested this time. The fact that Trinamool has been worst affected by the death toll in the pre-and post-poll panchayat elections can also not be ignored. This decline ought to be properly analysed. Merely a casual remark that it happened owing to stiff resistance from the opposition would be gross simplification of the facts, overlooking the ground realities.
Numerically, TMC will continue to have a firm grip on rural Bengal. But other indices — electoral, moral, psychological, political—make it convincingly explicit that the nature of political system is changing fast. The 2023 panchayat elections in West Bengal have delivered a strong signal to state politics. This election witnessed the politics of resistance, which was led by the common people. Was the resistance against the political hegemony of the TMC, or against its use of man force, or acting like a super-boss as if from the movies?
The most important question that this year’s election throws open is whether economic development and changing life-pattern of the rural poor has been responsible for it, and whether people are searching for some other alternate mechanism or political system. The biggest ‘political’ question that has surfaced in the wake of this change is whether this politics of peoples’ resistance will impact the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Nonetheless, an analysis of the voting trend and pattern would make it clear that while TMC was the main target, this election witnessed a tough fight between the BJP and the Congress-Left combination to occupy the position of the real opposition. BJP so far has remained the main opposition force in the Bengal political stage, but this election is likely to throw up some interesting results. Analyst say this election may see the revival of the Congress and Left, especially the CPI(M). But one development that ought to be clearly mentioned is that the revival of the Left would certainly not mean a dip in the right-wing party’s share in the opposition vote. The Left turnaround may start but the immediate electoral impact will be marginal.
Though the BJP leaders claim to be in better position, it is a farce. Organisationally, they are not in a better position than they were in 2018. A significant shift in support base has taken place. The Left cadres who had shifted their support to BJP after TMC came to power are gradually coming back to their parent party. Congress winning the Sagardighi assembly bypoll this year was a pointer to it. A huge swing of 28 per cent votes in favour of the Congress from the saffron camp and TMC had taken place. BJP’s vote-share had also sharply declined from 24 per cent to 13.94 per cent. The Congress-Left alliance snatched the minority-dominated Sagardighi seat from the TMC. This had happened in the backdrop when Mamata was being projected as the only secular face and protector of Muslim interest.
Looking mechanically at the electoral process and mood of the people would prove to be disastrous. It is imperative to decode the trend, and one would need an incisive look at the economic changes taking place in rural Bengal. The rural society is not static. The sharp decline in employment in agricultural and manufacturing sectors and a subsequent increase in construction and services sectors, along with the inclusion of the nouveau-rich class in electoral politics, have tremendously affected the rural economy. In turn, it has also affected the panchayat elections.
A massive chunk of the rural poor and lower middle class is barely eking out their livelihood in states of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. The women from the poor families are engaged in the domestic hand services sector. The rural people have started questioning the efficacy of the panchayat system and also how it has failed to serve them. They have voted but their disillusionment towards BJP and TMC was quite visible.
Yet another factor that influenced the panchayat election this time has been the effect of neoliberal development in the state. It is alleged that this has marginalised Bengali Muslims. The decline of class politics and the rise of identity politics have also hurt the rural population, which has predominance of Muslims. Incidentally, the Muslim politics is witnessing one significant development. They are divided into the upper-class Ashraf and the lower-class Azlaf categories. These categories were based on the supposed ethnic and linguistic differences. The Ashraf Muslims claimed North Indian ethnic identities and in some cases Arab and Afghan descent, whereas the Azlaf are said to have been converted from the lower caste Bengali Hindus. While the Ashraf Muslims lived mostly in Calcutta and other urban centres, the Azlaf Muslims lived in the rural areas.
The rural Muslims emerging as liberal middle class has a major impact on the political contour of the state. These people want their share in the political discourse and decision-making process. The TMC leadership will be hard-pressed to have a clear vision of this changing trend, if they intend to keep this section with it. Unfortunately, this is fraught with many disadvantages. With the TMC trying to meet their aspirations, the chorus of Muslim appeasement against it will become more pronounced. In urban areas, a small middle-class Muslim population is gradually taking shape. The TMC leadership will have to balance the needs of Hindus and Muslims for remaining in a dominant position in the Bengal politics. (IPA Service)
By Arun Srivastava