| Wednesday , April 29 , 2015 |
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150429/jsp/frontpage/story_17302.jsp#.VUAzQNKqqko
Didi ploughs through rivals but Left sees green shoots | |
| Devadeep Purohit | |
 Mamata Banerjee at her Kalighat residence after the civic election results were announced on Tuesday. She urged Trinamul workers not to take out victory rallies because of the earthquake tragedy in Nepal. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya However, two of the vanquished - the Left and the Congress - were spying green shoots of recovery in that desolate terrain. The BJP, which was spinning a midsummer dream last year, was crushed under the Trinamul foot. Mamata's Trinamul steamrollered the Opposition by winning 70 of the 91 civic bodies that went to polls across Bengal and bagging a record 114 of the 144 wards in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. Mamata iterated that the polls were free and fair, adding: "This is a more-than-expected outcome.... We have won more than three-fourth seats. I congratulate all the voters, including those who did not vote for us." The chief minister has reasons to be satisfied. First, Trinamul's scale of victory signified nothing short of a rout of the Opposition, which has failed to get even a single borough in Calcutta. A borough is a cluster of wards whose councillors elect a chairperson each. The city has 15 boroughs, through which funds for projects are routed. Second, this is the first broad-based victory for Trinamul since its electoral alchemist, Mukul Roy, was sidelined and a fresh team led by Mamata managed the polls. The Left and the Congress also found reasons to feel happy ahead of next year's Assembly polls. For the Left, the biggest takeaways are its elevation as the main Opposition force - a place it lost to the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls last year - and the triumph over Trinamul in Siliguri by adopting a strategy of collective resistance to protect the booths. Wherever the Opposition lined up behind a strong leader - Asok Bhattacharya of the CPM in Siliguri and Udayan Guha of the Forward Bloc in Coochbehar's Dinhata - Trinamul hit a hurdle. The Left is expected to get around 27 per cent of votes across Bengal and 25 per cent in Calcutta, according to a preliminary analysis of the civic poll results. The estimates for the Left are far lower than Trinamul's projected 50-odd per cent in the city and 42 per cent in Bengal. But the beleaguered Left Front feels that it is no longer down and out. The Congress, despite being plagued by defections, proved that it can still corner around 9 per cent votes across the state, besides retaining its core areas. "Given the change in the CPM's leadership at the Centre and the state, one can expect more co-ordination between the Left and the Congress and that may throw up a challenge (to Trinamul)," said Moidul Islam, a professor of political science at Presidency University. The BJP's poll percentage is expected to dip from over 25 per cent in Calcutta in 2014 to a little over 15 per cent. But the party claimed credit for improving its tally from three wards to seven in the city and winning 82 wards across 36 municipalities in Bengal. An immediate talking point was the high margin of victory in some wards. Leading from the front is Trinamul's Faiz Ahmed Khan, who won with a margin of over 30,000 votes from Calcutta's Ward 66, which has around 71,000 voters. "I know this is a record.... And the credit goes to the efforts of the chief minister in solving the water problem in the area," said Faiz. Not just in Ward 66 - which Faiz's father Javed Ahmed Khan and mother Rafat had represented for years - high margins were recorded in several parts of Calcutta, from where complaints of malpractice had been lodged on the day of polling. While the ruling party can always contend that the electorate voted en masse for its candidates because of the performance in power, not everyone is convinced. "In some districts like North 24-Parganas, Trinamul has got 81.96 per cent of the wards. In view of the complaints received from this district, such a sweeping victory raises questions," said Biswanath Chakraborty, a professor at Rabindra Bharati University. CPM politburo member Md Salim said: "Given the manner in which the ruling party used its goons, the administration and the poll panel, they should have won all the 144 seats in Calcutta and the 91 civic bodies. That the Left and the other parties won some wards in Calcutta is in itself an achievement." The state presidents of the Congress and the BJP, Adhir Chowdhury and Rahul Sinha, respectively, echoed Salim. The Left and the BJP have called a 12-hour bandh on Thursday over the alleged rigging. Mamata today declared that "there will be no bandh in Bengal". But the magnitude of victory need not help always. "In the absence of the Opposition, Trinamul's internal contradictions will be exposed further, which may weaken the organisation," said Moidul Islam, the political science professor. |