Can Trinamool’s welfare schemes counter Sandeshkhali scandal impact in West Bengal?

In the final phase, the Trinamool’s strongholds in West Bengal’s deep south could feel the impact of the Sandeshkhali controversy.

Rekha Patra, the BJP nominee for Basirhat, posing for selfies with supporters on the campaign trail. | Photo Credit: JAYANTA SHAW

Sabita Mandal of Majherpara village in the Basirhat Lok Sabha constituency was one of the many women who rushed out of her house in the mid-afternoon heat to greet Rekha Patra, one of the women who spearheaded the Sandeshkhali movement against local Trinamool leaders who are accused of atrocities against the women of Sandeshkhali island, which is part of the constituency. Patra is the BJP candidate in Basirhat.

The simple rural homemaker finds herself catapulted to the epicentre of a political storm that has raged in West Bengal since February. Crowds of women and young girls join her in campaigning, bringing her sweets and requesting selfies. “I really like her,” said Sabita. “She’s one of us.”

In nearby Aturia, 55-year-old Anima Sarkar believes that change is coming. “What happened at Sandeshkhali has affected us deeply. We were all once Didi’s [Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee] supporters, but now we are not so sure,” she said.

Incidentally, all the women who came out to greet Patra acknowledged that they had received the government’s enhanced Lakshmir Bhandar allowance for poor women: from Rs.500 to Rs.1,000 for the general category and Rs.1,200 for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The move, announced in the State Budget, was expected to neutralise the negative impact of the Sandeshkhali movement and counter the corruption charges against the State government. But, according to Subrata Sarkar, a farmer in rural Basirhat, people are “fed up” with corruption. “Earlier, 70 per cent of the villagers were with the Trinamool; now it is the reverse,” he told Frontline.

Sandeshkhali effect

In 2019, the Trinamool’s Nusrat Jahan won Basirhat by 3,50,369 votes against the BJP’s Sayantan Basu. In 2021, the party won all seven Assembly segments in Basirhat. But the upheaval in Sandeshkhali has done considerable damage to the party’s image in its stronghold.

Compounding the controversy, several videos surfaced recently in which two women claimed that they were coerced into making false allegations of rape against Trinamool leaders. In another video, a BJP mandal president was heard saying that many complaints had been filed on the instructions of the BJP.

While the BJP claimed that this was part of the Trinamool’s “conspiracy” to undermine the movement, the Trinamool alleged that the BJP orchestrated the entire Sandeshkhali episode for political gains.

Moreover, in communally sensitive Basirhat, the Trinamool’s decision to replace Jahan with Haji Nurul Islam, the MLA from Haroa who was an accused in the Deganga riots of 2010, has further polarised voters along religious lines. With the Left-Congress combine fielding veteran CPI(M) member Nirapada Sardar and the Indian Secular Front (ISF) also fielding a candidate, the Trinamool may not find the going easy.

As the election rolls on phase-wise from the north to the south, one enters deeper into the Trinamool strongholds. In 2019, the Trinamool held on to all nine seats that will be voting in the seventh and final phase of the election: Basirhat, Barasat, Dum Dum, Kolkata Uttar, Kolkata Dakshin, Jadavpur, Diamond Harbour, Jaynagar, and Mathurapur. It also won 62 of the 63 Assembly seats that fall under these Lok Sabha constituencies.

However, among the issues that have become central points in the election and hit the ruling party the hardest are Sandeshkhali, the School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment scam, and, most recently, the Calcutta High Court verdict on OBC status. On May 22, the Calcutta High Court cancelled all OBC certificates issued in West Bengal since 2010 and struck down several portions of a 2012 Act that enabled reservation for several communities. Mamata lashed out at the order, calling it a “BJP verdict”. “How dare they! The court cannot be divisive,” she said. She also pointed out two recent instances of retired High Court judges voicing their affiliation with the Sangh Parivar.

Setback for Trinamool

The Trinamool received another setback in October last year when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Jyoti Priya Mallick, Cabinet Minister and one of the most influential leaders of North 24 Parganas district, in the multi-crore ration scam. Basirhat, Barasat, and Dum Dum are situated in North 24 Parganas. The BJP has its own problems in the region. In Barasat, where the Trinamool’s Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar is working for a fourth straight win, the BJP is a party divided. In March, a section of the party in Barasat wrote to the Election Commission against its own candidate, Swapan Majumdar, and raised “concerns about his suitability as the candidate”. A BJP source said the party could have made use of the strong anti-incumbency in the constituency if it had a better candidate in place.

Mallick is not the only leader whose absence is likely to be felt by the ruling party. In March, Tapas Roy, former Cabinet Minister and influential Trinamool MLA, joined the BJP and is the party nominee for the prestigious Kolkata Uttar seat, which Sudip Bandopadhyay, five-time Lok Sabha MP and Leader of the Trinamool in the Lok Sabha, has won since 2009. The Trinamool cannot afford to be complacent about winning this seat any more, with the two heavyweights in the fray.

Roy, a five-time MLA (four times with the Trinamool and once with the Congress), is known to have enough political and social clout in the Kolkata Uttar constituency to pose problems for his former colleague. Roy also has some influence in the Dum Dum constituency; he has been an MLA from the Baranagar Assembly segment in the constituency since 2011.

Dum Dum will witness a triangular contest, with the Trinamool’s veteran parliamentarian Saugata Roy taking on Sujan Chakraborty, former CPI(M) MP, and Shilbhadra Dutta of the BJP, who was formerly a Trinamool MLA.

In Kolkata Dakshin and Diamond Harbour, two of the Trinamool’s impregnable fortresses, no breach is likely to happen. Kolkata Dakshin has been in the party’s control for more than 25 years now. Mamata won this seat from 1991 to 2011. This time, too, outgoing MP Mala Roy is likely to retain it. In Diamond Harbour, Abhishek Banerjee, Trinamool general secretary and Mamata’s nephew, is all set to prevail in a seat he has held since 2014.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at a public meeting in support of the Trinamool’s Dum Dum candidate Saugata Roy, in North 24 Parganas on May 22. | Photo Credit: PTI

In the three remaining constituencies in South 24 Parganas district, namely Jadavpur, Jaynagar, and Mathurapur, the advantage seems to lie with the ruling party. However, the issue of corruption, particularly the SSC recruitment scam, is likely to have an impact, particularly in Jadavpur, which will see an interesting contest between three high-profile candidates: the CPI(M)’s young turk Srijan Bhattacharyya, the actor turned politician Saayoni Ghosh of the Trinamool, and the senior BJP leader Anirban Ganguly. The ISF, with its strong support base in the Bhangar Assembly segment of the constituency, is also likely to be a deciding factor.

Voter polarisation

The BJP’s constant attempt to give the Sandeshkhali movement a communal colour has further polarised a section of voters. In the highly charged atmosphere, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself appeared to be stoking communal flames in his speeches, the Chief Minister added fuel to the fire by accusing the Ramakrishna Mission, the Bharat Sevashram Sangha (BSS), and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness of working for the BJP.

After Modi pounced on the issue by alleging that her statements were aimed at “appeasing her vote bank”, Mamata toned down her attack by saying that she was not against institutions such as the Ramakrishna Mission and the BSS, but she maintained that some of their religious leaders were working for the saffron party. She even accused the well-known BSS leader Kartik Maharaj, also known as Swami Pradiptananda Maharaj, of playing a role in a communal flare-up in Murshidabad during the Ram Navami celebrations. The BSS leader reacted by sending Mamata a legal notice. On May 24, thousands of monks, including Kartik Maharaj, took to the streets in protest against the Chief Minister’s comments.

According to Biswanath Chakraborty, a psephologist, Mamata’s attacks on such socioreligious institutions “betrayed a fear that the increasing religious polarisation may be going against her interest”. He added: “She believes that there are now other forces outside the BJP that are working against her. This is part of Mamata’s strategy of creating a conspiracy theory around her. This sounds like she feels she is in trouble.” The Lok Sabha election in the State has been a singular one this time. There has been no perceptible wave in favour of any party or leader; there were hardly any national issues that were raised during campaigns and in messages; there was barely any impact of the Ram temple consecration in Ayodhya, but religious polarisation in the electorate was apparent.

Most interestingly, the silence of the vast majority of the electorate, who were reluctant to voice their opinion, did not allow political observers to feel any “pulse”. Although the Trinamool did provide enough ammunition for the opposition to destroy it, it protected itself with populist measures and promises. And although the opposition’s organisational strength left much to be desired, the ground-level anger in many parts of the State against the ruling party more than compensated for their weakness. In short, it has been a national election with an overwhelming regional bias.