Wake-up call

Biman Bose, Left Front chairman: The disunity among the Left Front partners and their mode of campaigning confused the Lefts supporters."-SUSHANTA PATRONOBISH

The results of the panchayat elections have shown disquieting trends for the Left Front government.

THE three-tier panchayat elections in West Bengal, which were held in three phases in 17 districts on May 11, 14 and 18, threw up a number of surprises. For the first time in over three decades, it was not a cakewalk for the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front.

At first glance the overall result may not appear unusual the Left Front took control of 13 of the 17 zilla parishads, winning 519, or almost 70 per cent, of the 748 seats; it won a little over 57 per cent of the panchayat samitis and 51 per cent of the gram panchayats. But an analysis of the figures at the micro-level and a comparison with the results of the 2003 panchayat elections bring out trends that may be disquieting for the Left Front government.

Broadly they include the groundswell of opposition to land acquisition for large-scale industrialisation; an apparent dent in minorities support to the Left Front, especially at the panchayat samiti and gram panchayat levels; and the conflicts between the CPI(M) and its Left Front partners, principally the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the Forward Bloc. Thus, in some places even when the CPI(M) retained a zilla parishad convincingly it suffered reverses in the lower tiers.

As far as the Opposition parties are concerned, they formed informal alliances against the complacent Left Front, the CPI(M) in particular, at the local level and severely reduced its majority.

The Left Front won 13 zilla parishads, two fewer than it did in 2003. Though it won back the Murshidabad Zilla Parishad from the Congress, it lost East Medinipur, South 24 Parganas and North Dinajpur to the opposition.

Of the 329 panchayat samitis, the Left Front won 190, securing 4,929 of the 8,800 seats, the CPI(M) alone winning 4,372 seats. Though the Left won 57.45 per cent of the samitis, it fell far short of the 280, or 85 per cent, it won in 2003.

At the gram panchayat level, the Left Front won 1,625, or 50.47 per cent, of the 3,220 gram panchayats, as against 2,311, or 71.77 per cent, in 2003.

The performance in the local body elections came as a shot in the arm for the Trinamool Congress. It not only wrested control of two zilla parishads from the Left East Medinipur and South 24 Parganas but also increased its zilla parishad membership to 122 from 16 in 2003. It won control over 101 panchayat samitis, bettering its score to 30.6 per cent from a little over 3 per cent in 2003.

The Congress, too, improved its position at the zilla parishad level by securing 100 seats as against the 67 it won in 2003. It not only retained the Malda Zilla Parishad but also wrested North Dinajpur from the Left. In the second tier, it won 34 panchayat samitis by itself and 43 in alliance with the Trinamool Congress, to register a 20 per cent increase over its performance in 2003. At the gram panchayat level, the Congress improved its tally, winning 7,073 seats as against 6,223 in 2003.

This is the highest number of panchayat seats the Opposition has ever won in the past 30 years, said State Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Surjya Kanta Mishra.

Though the Left Front won a majority in all three tiers of the panchayat system, its percentages fell drastically with a united opposition making inroads into its rural vote something that had not happened in the 30 years of Left Front rule. The Left Front suffered heavy losses in the second and third tiers, particularly in Nadia, North 24 Parganas, Howrah and to some extent Hooghly, all districts where the Left Front won the zilla parishads.

The united opposition, however, failed to breach the Left bastions of Bardhaman, West Medinipur, Bankura, Birbhum, North Dinajpur, Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri. It would be a little too early to agree with Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjees statement: This is the beginning of the end of CPI(M) rule.

Still, the results have perturbed the Left leadership. I cannot deny this is a serious concern not just for us but for the whole communist and leftist movement in the State and the country, Biman Bose, CPI(M) State secretary, Polit Bureau member and Left Front chairman, told Frontline.

What possibly stung the Left Front and the CPI(M) the most is the defeats in Nandigram in East Medinipur district and in Singur in Hooghly district. All eyes had been on these two regions, considering the trouble the State government faced both from the opposition and within the Left Front over land acquisition in both places, in Singur for Tata Motors small-car project and in Nandigram for a proposed chemical hub.

Even days before the panchayat elections, sporadic violence in Nandigram, between activists of the CPI(M) and the Trinamool Congress-led Bhumi Uchhed Pratiridh (Land Eviction Resistance) Committee, marred the peace in the region.

The results clearly show there is a major erosion in the CPI(M)s rural vote bank. People have reacted mainly on the question of land acquisition. It is a clear verdict against [Chief Minister] Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and [Industry Minister] Nirupam Sens industrial policy, senior Trinamool Congress leader Sougata Roy told Frontline.

For Mamata Banerjee this victory was particularly sweet, as her unrelenting agitation in the region not only brought her victories but also helped her out of the political wilderness she had found herself in after her partys disastrous results in the 2006 Assembly elections.

Addressing the press on May 24, Mamata Banerjee, referring to her partys victories in East Medinipur and South 24 Parganas districts, said: We will not allow farmland acquisition for industries there. The government tried to acquire multi-crop land forcibly in those two districts. She ruled out talks with the State government on this issue and repeated her demand for the return of around 400 acres (one acre is 0.4 hectare) that she claimed was acquired forcibly for in Singur.

Though Nirupam Sen gave an assurance that the States industrialisation drive and inflow of investments would not be hampered by the panchayat election results, the CPI(M) State committee decided at its meeting that the government would take a more cautious approach in its industrialisation policy and take the people into confidence.

However, it would be too simplistic to attribute the election results to the governments land acquisition programme. While it is true that the Left lost in Singur, Nandigram and Bhangar in South 24 Parganas principally over the land issue, it won convincingly in other areas where large tracts of land were acquired for industries, for example, at Salboni in West Medinipur, Raghunathpur in Purulia, and Salanpur in Burdwan.

Besides, in areas where the Left lost over the land issue, particularly in Singur and Nandigram, it had to contend with stubborn resistance from the Opposition and an equally hostile attack from sections within the Left Front, namely the RSP and the Forward Bloc. Even Sougata Roy conceded that to some extent the Trinamool Congress did benefit from the disunity in the Left Front.

According to Biman Bose, this disunity was the foremost reason for the Left Fronts relatively poor showing. The disunity among the Left Front partners and their mode of campaigning confused the Lefts supporters; and this time all the opposition parties, including extreme Right and extreme Left forces, combined in many places in the second and third tier, putting up one-to-one candidates, he told Frontline.

Though the Trinamool Congress leadership denies vehemently any understanding with other parties at the local level, many State Congress leaders admit it. It is true that at the top level there has been no alliance between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, but there has been an understanding at the village level, said Pradeep Bhattacharjee, working president of the State Congress. He added that the Left Fronts reduced majority was a result of unorganised adjustment of all anti-CPI(M) forces.

The CPI(M) leadership also admitted that in many places the Left Fronts field workers, while refuting the canards of the opposition, failed to carry forward its own campaign.

According to Partha Chatterjee, Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly who belongs to the Trinamool Congress, a significant outcome of the panchayat elections is the alienation of the minority votes from the Left Front. Muslims voted en bloc against the CPI(M) and its allies, he said. This may be true in certain areas of the State. By and large, Muslims did not conform to any fixed pattern.

Siddiqullah Chowdhurys Jamait-i-Ulema-e-Hind managed to win 20 panchayat samiti seats, not just in East Medinipur but also in North 24 Parganas and Hooghly. The effect of communal campaigning did not reflect uniformly in the voting behaviour in all parts of the State. But it did work in places such as North and South 24 Parganas, Nadia and East Medinipur, all traditional vote banks of the Left, said Biman Bose.

Such a campaign was aimed at generating a fear psychosis, convincing the people that the CPI(M) was out to rob them of their hearth and home and develop their land for industries, said Bose. As a large section of Muslims in rural Bengal are poor peasants and agricultural workers, the campaign worked. Bose said the party had failed to dispel such fears at the village level.

The party also realises that it was time for some introspection. Admitting that after 30 years of governance an element of arrogance might have crept into the party, Bose told Frontline: Unfortunately, sometimes our activists, even myself, feel we know best. This has been a good alarm call for all of us right from Left Front leaders to the cadre that we cannot afford to be arrogant. There is still much to learn from the people. We have to understand the mood of the masses.

He said that in some areas the party may have lost touch with the people. In some cases a sense of complacency has also probably worked [against the party]. For 30 years they have not experienced defeat, and so now when from certain quarters they tell me they were not expecting it, it means somewhere down the line there was a communication gap between the local leaders and the activists, said Bose.

This failure of the CPI(M) in certain areas was further substantiated by RSP Central Secretariat member and former Member of Parliament Manoj Bhattacharya.

It is not that the people there voted for the Trinamool Congress or the Congress or even the BJP; it was just a vote against the CPI(M), he told Frontline. He also felt that it was time that the CPI(M) identified, among its activists and local leadership, those responsible for the partys poor performance and took them to task.

In spite of having a majority in all three tiers of the panchayat system, the CPI(M) is treating this victory as a failure. For the first time, its rural base has been dented, thus highlighting the need to re-group and focus on the future.

The results have brought a semblance of an Opposition in the political system of West Bengal. Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, who is also the president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, said soon after the results were declared: The seeds have been sown. Perhaps we will be able to reap the harvest.

Already there is talk of a grand alliance to unseat the Left Front. However, Mamata Banerjee has so far shown no inclination to join hands formally with the Congress.

As Pradeep Bhattacharjee said, without any grand alliance, it will not be possible to unseat the CPI(M)-led government in West Bengal.