Let’s be clear. Central and state politics have their own dynamics. Often in the past, the Left has supported the Congress at Centre to keep away the “Communal Forces”. But it has always been a different ball game in states, particularly when it comes to the Left bastion – West Bengal and Kerala. Hence, on April 2, when the Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi shared the dais with Left leaders in an election rally in Kulti, West Bengal, he set precedence.
Left-Congress Alliance and Poll Arithmetic
In the past, this would have been considered sacrilegious in a state where the Congress and the Left were considered sworn enemies. Not anymore! Their desperation to be in power got the better of their ideological agenda. Else, how could a “secular” Trinamool Congress government, of which the Congress was an alliance partner in the 2011 assembly elections, be a compelling factor for the Left Front to join hands with the Congress?
A similar alliance could well have been understood in case of taking on the might of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party. If at all, any state offered a perfect excuse for such bonhomie, it was Bihar. But in Bihar, where the Congress had joined the “Grand Alliance” or “Mahagathbandhan” of its once sworn enemies, the Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the CPI(M) had refrained from joining the alliance during the 2015 state elections!
Unlike in Bihar, the BJP is not a potent force traditionally in West Bengal and hence, the Congress-Left alliance could not be said to be guided by the CPI-M’s resolve at its Kolkata plenum in December last year to “check communal forces” (read the BJP). The latent “understanding” with the Congress, in spite of the protests within the Left Front Constituents, therefore, is clearly driven by the poll arithmetic – the combined vote share of the Left Front and the Congress was 39.61 per cent as against the Trinamool Congress’s 39.77 per cent in the last Lok Sabha elections in 2014.
CPI(M)’s Objective of Increasing Vote Share
Ostensibly the Left hopes transfer of 100 per cent Congress vote share to its kitty following their tacit pact. But can the voters be tricked this way? Consider that the CPI-M, which had once denounced the Congress as a “semi-fascist”, “bourgeois” and “revisionist”, remains a bitter opponent of the latter in election-bound Kerala and the Kerala CPI-M leaders have no compunction attacking the Congress as “apostle of neo-liberalism”.
Politics, indeed, make strange bedfellows.
Hope for Left Insurgence in West Bengal
This brings the focus on the other fringe players of the Left Front in West Bengal – particularly the Communist Party of India, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the All India Forward Bloc. Together, these three parties have 22 seats in the outgoing state assembly. Their initial posture was to oppose the pact with the Congress. The RSP even threatened to move out of the Left Front but finally threw in the towel. After all, didn’t the poll arithmetic offer a hope of a Left resurgence in the state wherein the Congress had an indispensable role?
Trinamool Congress wants to neutralize the Congress-Left alliance
Little surprise, therefore, that the Trinamool Congress’s supremo, chief minister Mamata Banerjee lost no time attacking the Congress by terming it as a “creeper… having no ideology…trying to survive banking on strength of others”.
Who other than Mamata knows it better? Herself a former Congressperson, she was the first to exploit the Congress’ support to oust the Left from power in West Bengal in 2011! Though, she moved out of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance a year later. For the first woman chief minister of the state, her agenda is not just to overcome the stains of Saradha scam and the charges of corruption against her government, but also to neutralize the Congress-Left alliance by highlighting the 34 years of Left misrule in the state on one hand, and to check the progress of a revamped BJP on the other.
Being at the helm, she does have a task in hand to ensure the people buy her claims of being a “government of common people … (which) will never do anything which could become a burden on people”. The recent collapse of an under-construction flyover in Kolkata could well make her task of convincing the people of her claims a bit tougher now.
BJP looks to regain its vote share secured in 2014 Lok Sabha elections
As for the BJP is concerned, its sole agenda should be to ensure that it regains the 18 per cent vote share that it had secured for the first time ever in the state in the last Lok Sabha elections. (This was a quantum leap from the mere 4 per cent vote shares during 2011 state elections when it had failed to open its account, although later in September 2014 assembly by-poll, it eventually won a seat). In subsequent civic polls and Lok Sabha by-election, it has fared miserably.
The BJP has revamped the state party organisation under a new state president. It has even got popular actress Rupa Ganguly, “a person with a fighting spirit to combat Mamata”, installed as the chief of state BJP women’s wing besides roping in Chandra Kumar Bose, the grand nephew of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, and fielding him against Mamata in the elections.
Will its efforts fetch it seats in the state is to be seen but if it manages to do so, the party would definitely credit it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development agenda! After all, hadn’t Modi’s “development agenda” got a severe beating at the hustings in Bihar?
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