Resurgent CPI-M Eyeing Better Results In 2021 Assembly Polls, But Why Is TMC Happy?

A blizzard of coronavirus is blowing over West Bengal, with    a patchwork of lockdowns speckling the state. Even so, sseveral citizens, like the state바카라�s political grandees, have their sights trained on next year바카라�s assembly polls. Kader Mollah, a 40-year-old carpenter, waits for the doctor바카라�s summons at the end of a corridor in the Ronald Ross building of Calcutta바카라�s SSKM hospital. A resident of the Sunderbans, Mollah shifted his allegiance to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) a few years ago from the CPI(M)바카라�a common migration. The fate of the 2021 state polls, he says, hinges on one question: 바카라�Whether 20 per cent of the Left바카라�s vote that shifted to the BJP in 2019 returns to the Left, or at least half of it.바카라�

While it may not be the only factor, it surely is a key one; a reason for the TMC to ensure that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) opens its off­ices everywhere바카라�premises that were destroyed or taken over after the Trinamool came to power in 2011바카라�and organises rallies. 바카라�In our area, the CPI(M) has opened offices and increased its ground presence,바카라� says Mollah. The Left바카라�s comeback, calculates the TMC, will rebound to its favour in its fight with a resurgent, aggressive BJP. By this maths, if the anti-TMC vote gets divided between the Left and the BJP바카라�unlike in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when the BJP bagged 18 of 42 seats바카라�victory is ensured. The BJP바카라�s lead in 121 of 294 assembly segments in 2019 gave CM Mamata Banerjee바카라�s party a fright too.

That Bengal바카라�s Left voters have moved to the right over the past six years was glaringly apparent in 2019, when the Left바카라�s vote share dropped from 25.69 per cent (in the 2016 assembly polls) and 29.99 per cent (in the 2014 LS polls) to 7.53 per cent. The BJP바카라�s share went up from 17 to 40 per cent.

The Trinamool has taken to the drawing board in earnest. 바카라�If at least 2-4 per cent of the CPI(M)바카라�s vote ret­urns to it, we are safe,바카라� says a senior party leader. There바카라�s a certain buoyancy on the ground too바카라�the CPI(M), often with the Congress, is holding big rallies in past bastions, like in Nandigram in East Medinipur district, where a ham-fisted approach to a land movement was a key reason to their downfall in 2011. Late last week, Sujan Chakraborty, leader of the Left legislature party in the assembly, and Abdul Mannan of the Congress, held a joint public meeting in Khejuri block, adjacent to Nandigram. Between 2006 and 2011, violence in Khejuri weakened the Left and helped the Trinamool. In 2020, with voters tired of the constant conflict바카라�verbal and physical바카라�between the BJP and the TMC, and seized with anti-incumbency, the CPI(M) is gaining ground in these areas.

The situation is nearly the same in Cooch Behar in North Bengal. Here, when local TMC leaders allegedly sent boys to harass Subhralok Das, the state secretariat member of the Students바카라� Federation of India (SFI), in Dinhata recently, he decided to organise a tatkhonik (instant) rally. 바카라�We announced it on Facebook about 12 hours before the meet; around 500 people attended it,바카라� says Das. Indeed, in a state grappling with twin punches from COVID-19 and cyclone Amphan, the red hammer-and-sickle flag flies with confidence in every district. The CPI(M) state-level leaders say it emerged naturally, out of hardship.

바카라�Till a few months ago, we hardly had young women and men in the forefront. But during relief work after Amphan we witnessed the participation of many who are in their twenties바카라�it was hugely inspiring,바카라� says a state committee member. Das agrees. If the BJP and its students바카라� wing 바카라�have Hindutva, the SFI has issues바카라�, he says.

Sitting in a red-painted corner room of the CPI(M) South 24 Parganas district office, Sujan Chakraborty connects global developments with local ones for the party바카라�s turnaround. 바카라�People are disillusioned with capitalism; they are getting nothing out of monopoly-driven capitalism,바카라� he arg­ues. The Narendra Modi government has failed to keep its promise of creating jobs, he adds, 바카라�and oil prices are going up바카라� as global prices dip. Workers바카라� rights are fast disappearing, while Bengal is in complete anarchy. 바카라�A combination of these factors is creating space for the Left,바카라� says Chakraborty. He disagrees with the theory that the Trinamool is encouraging the Left in order to split the anti-TMC vote.

바카라�The TMC is losing heavily, their men are leaving, they are in no position to stop us,바카라� he says. But the key question바카라�raised by Mollah in Calcutta바카라�on whether the 20 per cent vote share the Left lost could return, alerts Chakraborty. 바카라�It is a million-dollar question,바카라� he says, almost in a whisper. He regains his flourish after taking a deep pause: 바카라�We expect a substantial number of votes to get back. The signs are visible. But two factors are crucial.바카라� One, says Chakraborty, is the approach of both the TMC and the BJP to 바카라�promote a politics of binaries바카라�. 바카라�The political pol­arisation along with a communal one, mainly targeting Muslims and Marxists, would help both the TMC and the BJP,바카라� he admits.

Despite parliamentary and assembly polls differing in the very issues at stake, the TMC got 34 seats with a 39 per cent vote share in 2014, and merely 22 seats but with a higher, 44 per cent, vote share five years later. The more a politics of pol­arisation took hold, the more the TMC suffered in terms of seats and the Left in terms of both seats and vote shares. The TMC is to blame too, for as it ruthlessly marginalised the Left, it could scarcely stop the BJP바카라�s steady march through Bengal, turning an essentially triangular contest to a dual duel.

Yunus Ali, a local Forward Bloc leader of Choto Jagulia village in North 24 Parganas, was one of the earliest Left grassroots workers to join the BJP. His house was attacked, he was beaten up, his brother바카라�a CPI(M) worker바카라�was jailed. He had little opt­ion but to join the BJP. In an effort to create an 바카라�Opposition-free바카라� space by force, the TMC drove tens of thousands of people, such as Ali, into the waiting arms of the BJP.

The equation is different from the perspective of an RSS functionary. Dhanpat Ram Agarwal, national co-convenor of the RSS바카라�s Swadeshi Jagran Manch and in charge of the BJP바카라�s economic cell, says it would be difficult for the TMC to retain power. 바카라�The vote moving back from the BJP to the CPI(M) is not a possibility. Realising that neither the TMC nor the CPI(M) are options, people are moving to the BJP as, on two key factors, industry and infiltration from Bangladesh, both have failed,바카라� Agarwal says. He bel­ieves that while the Congress and the CPI(M) will hold on to some dedicated votes, the TMC바카라�s vote share will hugely reduce, benefiting the BJP. The Trinamool admits to a certain degree of anti-incumbency, but rests hope on the charisma and leadership of Mamata Banerjee바카라�something, the party leaders says, the BJP cannot match.

Still waiting in the hospital corridor, Mollah says voters take time in Bengal to change a government once they elect one, indicating that the TMC will stay in power. 바카라�The CPI(M)바카라�s rise will make the contest triangular again, which is important for the Trinamool to hang on,바카라� stresses the carpenter from Sunderbans.

Suvojit Bagchi in Calcutta