KOLKATA
In the run-up to the Bengal panchayat elections, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders declared from every platform that they were instrumental in stopping Central funds to West Bengal because the state’s Trinamool Congress government was misusing the money or just defalcating it. By way of example, they pointed out how money from the mid-day meal scheme, given by the Centre, was diverted to pay compensation for the victims of the Bogtui massacre in which 10 people died in an intra-Trinamool feud.
The Trinamool was quick to capitalise on this, and all its leaders, from top to bottom, lost no opportunity in highlighting the “Centre’s deprivation of funds to Bengal”. Fear was also spread among villagers that if the BJP ever got their vote, the freebies they were getting from the Mamata Banerjee government would be stopped eventually. Trinamool Congress seniors claim that the state government’s social welfare schemes, like Lakshmir Bhandar (direct cash transfer to women), Kanyasree, and those which made villagers direct beneficiaries, were a huge boost to their performance and they would be banking on this support in next year’s parliamentary polls as well.
After the panchayat poll results, BJP leaders rue that Mamata Banerjee’s strategy highlighting the “Centre’s deprivation of funds to Bengal” may have worked with the state’s 5.3 crore rural electorate.
The Trinamool Congress landslide also reveals deep faultlines in the home turfs of BJP junior Union ministers Nisith Pramanik, John Barla and Shantanu Thakur and MLA Suvendu Adhikari who is seen as the most trenchant critic of the Mamata Banerjee government.
The BJP managed only a slender lead in Nandi gram, Suvendu Adhikari’s stronghold. The BJP lost at Barla’s home turf, Lakhipara tea garden area. The party lost all five gram panchayat seats in the area. Barla, however, claimed ballot boxes were changed after they were kept in the strong room.
Barla’s constituency Alipurduar has been a BJP stronghold since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The BJP also lost in Thakurnagar’s Matua belt, the turf of Bongaon MP and junior Union minister Shantanu Thakur.
Shantanu and his brother Subrata Thakur, BJP’s Gaighata MLA, reside at Ichhapur gram panchayat (no II) of Gaighata block. In Bongaon subdivision, the Trinamool won 34 panchayats while the BJP bagged just four.
In Cooch Behar, stronghold of junior Home Minister Nisith Pramanik, the BJP trailed far behind the TMC.
Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said: “The panchayat elections have revealed that the BJP is a deflated balloon. They have been rejected by the people of Bengal. In 2024, we shall take the lead in ensuring that they are rejected by the people of India.”
Unlike the 2018 rural polls, when Trinamool Congress won more than one in three seats uncontested (34.8%), the party got a fairer idea of its popularity from these polls; it got a walkover in only 9.8% of the seats this time.
This, say Trinamool seniors, would be critical for preparing for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. “We missed out on a chance to assess ourselves and the Opposition’s strengths and weaknesses in 2018 and that cost us in the 2019 general elections,” a veteran Trinamool MP admitted.
Every party has already started strategising for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the share of votes each has got in rural Bengal this time would be an important criteria.
The Trinamool Congress won 63% vote share in last year’s urban local body polls. If it gets a similar vote share in villages as well, BJP will have to work overtime to retain its 2019 tally of 18 Lok Sabha seats.
Wednesday’s results indicate that the BJP remains far ahead of the LF, Congress and ISF as the primary opposition party in rural Bengal even though its performance in the SC/ST population-dominated districts would be a cause for concern.
Trinamool has severely dented one-time BJP strongholds in Alipurduar (around 51% SC/ST population), Coochbehar (51% SC/ ST population), North Dinajpur (32%), South Dinajpur (45%), Jhargram (49%), Bankura (36%) and Purulia (37%), which gave BJP eight of its 18 LS seats in 2019. This may not augur well for the party in 2024. Even the Matua belt in and around Thakurnagar has largely opted for Trinamool this time, making BJP’s task for the 2024 general elections that much more complicated.
Mamata Banerjee’s freebie politics helped her trump her rivals. Reports say, about eight crore of the nine crore population of the state are getting rice at Rs 2 per kg.
Some 97% of Muslim population are registered under the OBC category, making them entitled to quota benefits for jobs and education. More than 1 crore students from the minority community had been given scholarships.
More than 30 lakh girls from the economically weak community were given financial assistance under the Kanyashree scheme. Similarly, under Yuvashree scheme, about 40 lakh boys and girls were given bicycles and around 1 lakh unemployed were given assistance of Rs 1,500 per month.