What next for Mamata Banerjee?
It remains to be seen whether after a massive victory in the state assembly Mamata will look towards Delhi to challenge the Modi government with some powerful regional leaders like Jayalalithaa, Kejriwala and Mayawati
Abdul Gaffar Choudhury
It is not strange that Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee has won the Assembly election of West Bengal against the mighty alliance of Congress and the Left Front. This is a spectacular victory. Because this time Trinamool fought alone against Congress and the combination of five or six Left parties. Before the election a journalist friend of mine in Kolkata predicted to me that this time Mamatas victory was uncertain. Her government was accused of huge corruption by the opposition mentioning Saradha, Narada and other financial scandals. BJP also hoped that this election will result in a hung-assembly and Trinamool and the alliance would seek BJPs support to form the government where in the process of bargaining they will gain one or two ministerial positions. But the election proved that BJP made a castle on sand.
Not only my journalist friend in Kolkata but also some political observers of the state predicted that Trinamool might not return to power because of the allegation of huge corruption against the Mamata government. Long before the election when there was allegations against the state government on Cheat Fund, and the Mamata government was very much cornered, I also thought that Trinamool would not survive the next assembly election. But Mamata not only survived, she alone defeated the alliance of a giant opposition. It seems that Trinamool Congress during the election concentrated on the propaganda of the success of their different development plans. Some observers say that it seems Governments propaganda of development has defeated the oppositions propaganda on the corruption of this government.
Some political pundits observed that the last Left Front government has ignored development plans in some vital sectors. Trinamool, after coming to power very cleverly started execution of development in those sectors. They fulfilled their promises by reducing the price of rice to 2 rupee per/KG. It was claimed that ordinary people did not pay attention to the oppositions complaint of corruption but gave more attention to the development plans of the government which benefitted them. A veteran columnist commented in a Kolkata Daily that when huge development work takes place in a country, corruption is inevitable; people, however, tend to ignore corruption and give importance to development.
This is true of Bangladesh also where corruption increased manifold with huge development work. Many top ranking Trinamool leaders of west Bengal were accused of corruption. Some of them were not elected in the recent election but Trinamool came out unscathed. It would not be irrelevant to warn Awami league government and the party that they should not be complacent seeing the result of West Bengal election that they would win the next election on their success of development plan only ignoring the charges of corruption. If Awami League government cannot ensure good governance along with development the next general election might produce different results. In the recent Union Parishad election some Zila and Upazila Awami Laeague leaders indulged in election-trade by selling the symbol of boat to fulfil their personal greed. It blackened the image of the party and the government. Nobody knows how it will affect the next general
election.
Whatever the opinion of some observers and supporters of Trinamool that Mamata won the election for her governments development work many were not in agreement with this opinion. I think the main reason for the defeat of Congress and Left Alliance was the disunity among them. I was in Kolkata last year for some time. I found out that there was a crack in the unity of the Left Front. The difference between RSP and Forward Block with CPM was widening and sometimes there was disagreement between the partners of the Front on different important issues. They maintained a unity only superficially. When the questions came about alliance with Congress before the election there were sharp differences of opinion among the Left Front even in the CPM. It was a marriage of convenience between Congress and Left Front and their only bond was the wish to remove Mamata from power.
Now allegations are coming from both Congress and Left Front that supporters of Left Front were unwilling to vote for the Congress nominee and vice versa. In some areas BJP voters voted for Trinamool because they wanted to stop the Left Front from coming to power for their ideological differences. There is another reason for Trinamools victory. Because the minority votes, especially Muslim votes favoured Trinamool. A big chunk of non-Bengali Muslims, known as Muhajir in Bangladesh started to cross the border, entered West Bengal and settled there before and after the liberation of Bangladesh. They established themselves in the states trade and commerce quickly and became a political power. The Left Front government when they were in power for more than three decades tried to woo the support of these non-Bengali Muslims giving them extra patronization. The local Bengali Muslims of the State of West Bengal remained neglected. The non-Muslim vote bank voted for Trinamool because Trinamool provided them more favour and a large number of discriminated Bengali Muslims also voted for Trinamool because of their apathy for Left-Front government.
When Left-Front was in government, the majority of their Muslim ministers were non-Bengali. Mamata, to defeat the Left Front increased the number of non-Bengali Muslim ministers in her government. The Darbar Sharif of Furfura got governments financial help and government allowance was granted for the Khatib and Imams of the mosques and madrasahs; Urdu was declared a second language of the state and unlike Left-Front government, Mamata did not take any measures against the stronghold of Jamaat at Behrampur and Murshidabaad. Many Jamaatis infiltrated West Bengal from Bangladesh.
Trinamool played another trick during their first term in power to win public support. After Mamatas first victory she extended hands of friendship towards Bangladesh and called Sheikh Hasina her elder sister. But as soon as she realized that her powerful non-Bengali Muslim vote bank (Bihari Muhajirs who came from Bangladesh) are deeply anti-Hasina government of Bangladesh she made a U turn quickly and took a stand against the settlement of different disputes with Bangladesh and frustrated the attempt of the last Congress government to have a strong relationship with Bangladesh. By this she killed two birds with one stone. The ordinary people of West Bengal thought by refusing to share Teestas water with Bangladesh and by stalling the settlement of Tipaimukh Barrage dispute Mamata had stood like a rock to safeguard West Bengals rights and interests. On the other hand, the powerful non-Bengali Muslim vote bank was satisfied that Mamata government was strongly toeing their anti-Hasina and anti-Bangladesh policy.
In the last assembly election Congress and Left alliance tried to capitalize the corruption charges against Trinamool government which did not influence the voters minds. But the alliance failed to expose the tricks of Mamata government which I mentioned above. Left-Front did not apologize to the people for their repressive policy in Singur and Nandigram nor did Congress admit their discriminatory policy against Bengali Muslims and other minority communities during their long rule in the past. A vast number of those electorates was not assured that by bringing back Congress or Left-Government to power they will be benefitted at all.
Now it remains to be seen that after a massive victory in the state assembly whether Mamata will look towards Delhi to challenge the Modi Government with some powerful regional leaders like Jayalalithaa, Kejriwala and Mayawati. Some political observers say that either she will be a future contender for Delhis throne or she will make peace with Modi government to get more financial allocation from the central government for more ambitious plan of development for West Bengal. In either case she would have to soften her present policy towards Bangladesh and Hasina government. If that happens it would strengthen the peace and stability in the eastern wing of the Subcontinent. Otherwise, the more ambitious the Trinamool leader the more she might cause unnecessary tension between two neighbours which will not be helpful for peace and prosperity for both the countries.
London, Friday 3 June 2016
