The woman ofthe match in the just concluded round of assembly polls is clearly West Bengalchief minister Mamata Banerjee. She battled a relentless 24x7 negative mediacampaign, a deadly sting operation, a corruption scandal near her doorstep andformidable alliance arithmetic on the other side to sweep back to power withstunning numbers.
How manyincumbent CMs can boast of winning more seats in their second term than theybagged when they first caught public imagination as the harbinger of change?Mamata has defied all odds to do just that.
There arethree main reasons for her mind blowing performance:
1) Personal Appeal
One is herpersonal appeal. Despite five years in office, she has not lost her emotionalconnect with people. Mamata remains Didi for the vast majority of the poor,both urban and rural. The intellectuals who powered her victory five years agomay have deserted her but the support for her was as strong as ever in thelower rungs of the socio-economic ladder.
2) Development Card
Thesecond is her development efforts, patchy as they are. Her administrativerecord leaves much to be desired. But in a state used to receiving mere crumbsfrom a party that had ruled with an iron hand for 34 years, even ad hocdevelopment Mamata-style proved to be a boon.
A smatteringof roads in areas forgotten by Left leaders comfortably ensconced in Kolkata'sWriter's Building, free cycles for school going children, money gifts for girlsat 18 and regular electricity, albeit at the cost of losing industry to otherparts of the country helped create a feel good factor to offset anyanti-incumbency that may have crept in.
3) Personality-Driven Campaign
Mostimportantly, none of the corruption scandals around which, her opponents builttheir campaign touched her personally. While voters were ready to believe theworst about her party leaders, Mamata remained untainted in their eyes.
So when sheasked for votes for herself as the Trinamool candidate in all 294 seats, peopledid just that. They voted for Mamata Banerjee as chief minister. It was assuccessful a personality-driven campaign as the one Narendra Modi ran in 2014when he sought votes as the next Prime Minister.
PathologicalHatred for Left
But anothernarrative has emerged from Mamata's overwhelming performance. In her successlies the story of the Left's abject failure to resurrect itself in its formerbastion. The numbers speak for themselves.
The Left, which had ruled Bengal for 34 uninterrupted years, has won fewer seats than even the Congress which was its junior partner in a hastily cobbled arrangement aimed at defeating Mamata through pure arithmetic. In the end, the arithmetic collapsed as the Left came a poor third to teeter dangerously on the verge of extinction in what was once considered a Marxist hub.
The CPI (M)will have to do some serious soul-searching to understand the reasons for itsdebacle. But a quick trip through parts of West Bengal gave an inkling of whatwas wrong. With no fresh blood to energise it, no charismatic leader tochallenge Mamata's dominant personality and no programme of action to pullBengal out of its moribund poverty and low level development, the Left wasdoomed from the beginning.
Voters saw the CPI (M) as “a party of oldmen'', as several youths put it. And for every allegation their leaders threwat Mamata – corruption, syndicate raj, daily violence and extortion by TMCthugs – people had just one response. “The CPI(M) started it.''
It isdifficult to shake off memories of 34 years of misrule and it is clear that thepeople of Bengal are not ready to take back the Left yet. And unless it reinventsitself, the CPI(M) may be reduced to a footnote in Bengal's political history.
AlthoughLeft leaders in the state consistently maintained that an alliance with theCongress was the call of the people, they had clearly misread the popular mood.In fact, the near rejection of the Left suggests that its voters were unhappy withthe decision to join hands with a party it had fought for more than fourdecades, often with violent consequences.
MamataReigns Supreme
- Didi'sunprecedented victory can be explained on the basis of a personality-drivencampaign, where on the lines of Modi versus the rest in 2014, people in Bengalchose Mamata in 2016.
- Mamata's victory is awake-up call for the Left that is in dire need of restructuring in order to winpeople's confidence.
- Left suffered a jolt in itshome turf due to lack of a charismatic leader in comparison to Mamata and aviolent past that haunts the party even today.
- Congress will have toreconsider its choice of alliance partner in Bengal, for its defeat is a clearrejection of tie-up with the Left.
Possibilityof Congress-Trinamool Alliance?
Ironically,the Congress managed to hold on to its fortresses in north Bengal by winningalmost as many seats as it won in 2011. But Rahul Gandhi will also have toanswer searching questions from within because he was the one who pushed forthe alliance with the CPI(M). In the process, he has virtually shut the dooron a future understanding with Mamata who will be formidable player on thenational stage now after her stunning victory.
In forging what voters clearly saw as anunholy alliance between ideological opponents, the Left and Congress turned the2016 campaign into a single issue election. Voters were asked to decide whetherthey were with Mamata or against her. A sharply polarised election tends to goin one direction. The people of Bengal have given a thunderous response.
(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist)
Also read:
Disillusioned with Left Rule, Bengal Gives Didi Another Chance
When Assam's Indigenous Muslims Threw in Their Lot With the BJP
Putting Poor Health Behind Her, Jaya Juggernaut Rolls On In TN
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