No hiccups here

The results in West Bengal are a foregone conclusion; only the margin of victory is to be known.

"Every battle is won before it is ever fought" - The Art of War by Sun Tzu (6th century B.C.).

THIS statement from the Chinese military treatise can well be true in the case of West Bengal.

The battle lines are drawn for the Assembly elections in the State, the first phase of which is to be held on April 17. In spite of the fact that for the first time elections in the State will be held in five phases and the absence of Anil Biswas, an important strategist and organiser, who passed away on March 26, the probability is that the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front will return to power and form the government for the seventh successive time. What remains to be seen is only the margin of victory and the relative performance of the Trinamul Congress-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine vis-a-vis the Congress.

Of the 294 seats in the Assembly, the Left Front captured 199 in the 2001 elections; the CPI(M) alone accounted for 143. That was not as good as its performance in 1996, when the Left Front won 203 seats (CPI(M) 150), and was well below its tally in 1991, when it secured 245 seats (CPI(M) 182). The trend seemed to indicate declining influence of the Left Front. But this came to a halt after 2001, owing to a number of factors.

One major reason for the continuing success of the Left Front is the absence of a credible alternative.

The mahajot (grand alliance) envisioned in 2001 by Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee. This time too her plans failed, as the Congress high command refused to enter into an alliance with her as long as she continued with her tie-up with the BJP and remained in the National Democratic Alliance.

Even State Congress heavyweight and Member of Parliament Ghani Khan Chaudhary, who was a leading proponent of a grand alliance, later reportedly recanted his stand. He said: "We cannot ignore our national stand for an alliance with Mamata." Mamata had pinned much hope on a mahajot. In fact, she even announced a list of just 201 candidates, setting aside a large chunk of seats for the Congress. Her disillusionment then turned to bitterness, which is reflected in her comment that earlier she considered the Congress a "B team" of the CPI(M) but now she sees it as a part of the `main team' of the ruling party. The upshot is a three-cornered contest once again, which will split the anti-Left vote.

Mamata Banerjee, who in 2001 was the main challenger to the Left Front, has steadily lost her mass base, popularity and political allies owing to her vacillations and mercurial temperament. Statistics bear out this gradual electoral decline of the Trinamul Congress. In the 2001 elections, it contested 226 seats and won in 60 - this was when she joined hands with the Congress with the Bangla Bachao (Save Bengal) slogan. In the panchayat elections that followed in 2003, her party could win only 16 of a total of 713 zilla parishad seats. In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, she was the sole winner as against the 10 seats her party won in 1999. In the municipal elections in 2005, the Trinamul Congress lost control of the prestigious Kolkata Municipal Corporation and retained only eight of the 126 urban local bodies. Even former Kolkata Mayor Subrata Mukherjee deserted her party for the Congress. In the legislature too, the performance of Trinamul members has done little to enhance their credibility as a responsible Opposition. In five years they brought six no-confidence motions against the Left Front, but none of them raised any specific material issue.

But Mamata's decline, in a way, has been the Congress' gain. The Congress controls two zilla parishads - Malda and Murshidabad. The Trinamul Congress does not control any. Out of 126 municipalities, the Congress rules 30 against the Trinamul's eight. In the last Lok Sabha elections, the Congress' tally of seats doubled, from three to six. In terms of percentage of votes polled, the share of Trinamul Congress declined from 38 per cent to 29 per cent, while that of the Congress went up from 13.53 per cent to 15.16 per cent.

However, for all the progress that the Congress has made in the State, it has no chance whatsoever of making a dent on the Left vote base. It may, of course, retain its pockets of influence, such as in Malda and Murshidabad, thanks largely to the popularity of Ghani Khan Chaudhary and Adhir Choudhury respectively. But even here trouble is likely, as Ghani Khan may not be able to canvas actively in Malda because of a sudden illness. In Murshidabad, a long-standing feud between Adhir Choudhury and former leader of Opposition Atish Sinha has come out in the open. Adhir Choudhury has reportedly fielded independent candidates against the official Congress nominees in three seats.

However, for all the differences the Congress claims to have with the Trinamul Congress, an `unofficial' alliance at the grassroots level is evident in parts of the State. The Opposition's position has been summed up by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who pointed out at an election rally that an unprincipled grand alliance, even if formed, could hardly achieve anything in the absence of any concrete programme or plan of action. In his characteristic manner, Bhattacharjee said: "Grand alliance, why? To oust the Left Front. Then what? They [the Opposition] have no answer to this."

This brings one to the second important factor that gives the Left Front an edge over its splintered Opposition - the government's focus on reforms and development with an eye to employment generation. Nirupam Sen, Minister for Commerce, Industries, Development and Planning, told Frontline: "When agriculture is our base, industry is our future. It is a market-driven economy that is prevalent in our country, integrating the Indian economy with the world economy. We have to face the stark reality of the neoliberal economy, as West Bengal is not immune to it, as we have to function under the overall political and economic framework of the country." Land reform and the abolition of the zamindari system paved the way for a resurgence in agriculture. The natural corollary is industrialisation.

But for all the good intentions, after 30 years of remaining in power, it is only natural that a certain amount of anti-incumbency feeling will surface among the populace. The reasons why it has not been strong enough to dislodge the government are many.

First, the change of guard from the senior Jyoti Basu to a younger Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was almost like a change of regime. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee himself brought in winds of change through his reformist agenda. In spite of opposition from certain sections of the Left, he raised new hopes and aspirations. The new spate of investments, for example, in the sectors of steel and Information Technology only strengthened the belief that a new era was dawning. But that does not mean that the Left in West Bengal has lost its socialist moorings. Quite the contrary, in a situation where it has little options, it has thrown its weight solidly behind the toiling masses.

As Nirupam Sen explained: "One of the basic maladies of the market economy is that a large chunk of people are being driven out of the market. Our scope for manoeuvre in such an economy is limited. What we can do is to provide a safety net for them. All the policies we have taken up in the past few years are directed towards that end." He said that the result of this year's elections would provide all the justification that the State government needed to continue with its policies. "Our results will certainly be better than 2001, and this time the CPI(M) might even get a two-thirds majority," he said. Many people believe that the Left Front will come out stronger than ever, even bettering its 1987 record when it won 251 seats.

Another way that the government is fighting the anti-incumbency factor is by taking cognisance of its mistakes and making appropriate changes. This time there are 130 new faces in the Left Front's list of candidates, including 33 women. In all, 64 MLAs, including eight Ministers - seven from the CPI(M) and one from the Forward Bloc - have been denied the ticket.

Recent reforms and past achievements notwithstanding, the Opposition has never stopped ascribing the Left Front's electoral success to what it calls `scientific rigging'. It is perhaps in response to this outcry that the Election Commission, fresh from the accolade it received for conducting a fair poll in Bihar, has ordered a five-phase polling. Thirteen lakh names have been deleted from the voters' list. The Left Front seems unperturbed.