2016 STATE ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS

Nothing Succeeds Like Success

in West Bengal
Rajat Roy

The outcome of the West Bengal

assembly elections raises
important questions. For one, it
questions the narrative of rural
appeasement by populist schemes
undertaken by the incumbent
government versus discontent in
urban areas. The success of the
welfare schemes, in any case, is
put in check by extortion, lumpen
practices, corruption as well
as discrimination in favour of
Trinamool Congress supporters.
The hurriedly put together
alliance between the Left Front
and Congress could offer no
viable alternative to the
ruling regime.

he outcome of the West Bengal

assembly elections has thrown up
more questions than provided
answers. After the election results were
known, a lot was talked about the welfare
measures initiated by the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in the
last five years that propelled Chief Minister
Mamata Banerjee and the TMC to resounding electoral success. These welfare
schemes included food rations at a subsidised rates for a large section of the people,
the Kanyashree scheme of cash transfers for
girl students, cycles for students of classes
nine and ten in rural areas, and potable
water in villages under the Sajaldhara
scheme. Better roads and improved supply of electricity too were considered
feathers in the cap of the ruling TMC government. There is no denying that these
programmes, however faulty in their implementation, created certain goodwill for
the ruling party among the rural poor.
Untrue UrbanRural Divide

Rajat Roy (royrajat@yahoo.com) is a senior

journalist and political commentator.

24

Of the total 294 assembly seats in Bengal,

only 32 seats fall under the urban category,
another 110 seats fall under the semi-urban
category, while the rest of the 152 seats are
in rural Bengal. Thus, control over rural
votes provides clues to electoral success in
the state. During the Left Fronts rule, measures like land distribution among the rural
landless and initiatives to empower the
poor by introducing an effective panchayat
system were considered to be among the
reasons that helped create a solid vote bank
for the left. It may be surmised that taking a
cue from the Left Front, Banerjee tried to
create a rural vote bank for her party by
initiating various welfare schemes.
From this premise, it is tempting to jump
to the conclusion that the welfare schemes
did tilt the balance in favour of the ruling
party. Once that is accepted, it is a step forward to change the narrative to one of an
urbanrural divide. The urban middle class
and intellectuals are apparently going

against a party that has already snatched

away power from their hands. The hegemony that had been established over the
years in social and political spaces by the
so-called bhadralok today lies in tatters.
Instead, a new process of social engineering is in motion where the poor benefit
from welfare schemes. The fierce attacks
launched by a large section of the media
against the ruling party during the election
campaign are only an expression of urban
anger because of loss of political influence
and powerso runs the dominant narrative. The reality is more nuanced.
The results show that of the 32 urban
seats, the Left FrontCongress alliance
could win only four seats, that is, Siliguri,
Durgapur East, Durgapur West and
Raniganj. The 20 other seats that the
alliance won came under the category of
semi-urban seats and the remaining 52
seats were from rural areas.
The district-wise results also show that
out of the total 11 constituencies in Kolkata,
the Left FrontCongress alliance drew a
blank. In Howrah district, out of 16 seats,
the alliance got only one seat. In North and
South 24 Parganas, where a good number
of seats are urban, the Left FrontCongress
combine fared poorly. Only Dum Dum
(North), Kamarhati and Jadavpur came
its way, while the alliance won another six
seats in rural areas. In Hooghly district
which has a number of urban seats, the
alliance did not get a single seat from an
urban area. Thus, the urbanrural divide
theory to explain the electoral outcome
hardly holds ground.
Extortion as Parallel Economy
In Bengal, the absence of growth in manufacturing industry has resulted in loss of
jobs. Contrary to the chief ministers
claim of having created 70 lakh jobs in the
last five years, the state government has
not been able to substantiate its claim
with hard facts and figures. The absence
of growth of employment opportunities
has given rise to extortion as an alternative source of income for the unemployed.
While a section of skilled, semi-skilled
and unskilled workers has been migrating in great numbers to distant states, another section of the unemployed youth in
the West Bengal has been occupied in the
lucrative occupation of extortion.

may 28, 2016

vol lI no 22

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly

2016 STATE ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS

In the real estate sector, businesses

have come up in the form of syndicates
that offer services like purchase of land,
supply of building materials and engagement of labourers to builders and property
developers. According to the chairman of
Bidhannagar Corporation, in Rajarhat
New Town alone, there are around 20,000
people involved in the syndicate business. There is ample evidence that these
syndicates get much-needed protection
from the political establishment and are
insulated from interference from lawenforcing agencies. The individuals who
form these syndicates extort money from
petty shopkeepers, owners of small and
medium industrial units and others.
The village poor are also not spared. In
this context, the experience of the people
getting employment under the Mahatma
Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in the state is telling. Unskilled workers who, under this
scheme, get paid sixeight months late,
find extortionists waiting right outside the
bank to take a hefty cut from their earnings. The fate of poor daily wage earners is
similar, as they are compelled to shell out a
portion of their earnings to goons owing
allegiance to the ruling party. If welfare
schemes are generally perceived to be propoor yielding political dividends to the
ruling party, the business of extortion
should at least partially offset their
impact. But this does not seem to have
happened to a significant extent.
During the rule of the Left Front, it was
often seen that the narrow sectarian approach of the then ruling party, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M),
created a divide in rural Bengal by denying benefits of the welfare schemes to
political opponents of the CPI-M. That this
pernicious tradition continues in Bengal
was evident in the case of distribution of
new digital ration cards and also when
funds were released through panchayats
for various rural development projects.
The hiring of civic volunteers presented
another example of widespread nepotism
in the state. The Calcutta High Court
recently declared that the appointment
process of civic police volunteers in West
Bengal was a sham with systematic
malice and ordered the state government
to cancel all such appointments by the end
Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

may 28, 2016

of 2016. The government had created the

civic volunteer force in 2013 and recruited
around 1.3 lakh young people tasked
with assisting the police in managing
traffic besides doing manual work in
police stations. The high court observed
that the process adopted by the government during the recruitment of civic police volunteers was not only illegal, it
seems to be a scam. It added that the
government had adopted a pick-andchoose policy (Telegraph 2016).
A new social divide within the rural
poor has been successfully created by the
ruling establishment. In 70 assembly seats,
the margin of victory was less than 5,000
votes. Most of these are in the rural areas.
Of these, 17 went to the CongressLeft
Front combine, two to the BJP and the rest
to the ruling TMC. Had there been a serious effort on the part of the state government to ensure all-round development
through various welfare schemes that are
not discriminatory, the margin of victory
for the ruling party in these 52 seats
would perhaps have been much higher.
Is Corruption a Non-issue?
Arguments are being offered that the rural
poor in West Bengal ignore the issue of
corruption and give greater weightage to
the direct benefits they receive from welfare schemes in determining voting behaviour. If such a proposition is accepted,
the question arises as to how extortion
and bullying exercises its influence on
voters when they exercise their franchise.
Five of the TMC candidates who were
sought to be implicated in the Narada sting
operation (for allegedly accepting bribes)
won in the elections this time. Of them,
four contested from urban constituencies,
where the electorate is relatively more
exposed to the media which had extensively highlighted the Narada scam.
Their margin of victory in these assembly
constituencies was much lower in comparison to the results in the 2011 assembly
elections; in some cases, the margin
halved. So the question remains: was
corruption a non-issue altogether?
Perception plays a crucial role in influencing decisions. The biggest capital of
the ruling TMC has been and remains the
public perception of the image of Mamata
Banerjee. She is perceived as untainted

vol lI no 22

and pro-poor. She leads the life of an

ordinary citizen and her personal integrity is considered unquestionable.
The assembly election was preceded by
two incidentsthe release of Narada videotapes and the collapse of Vivekananda
flyover in central Kolkata. The incidents
raised serious doubts about the TMC supremos honesty. In trains plying between Santiniketan and Burdwan, bauls (folk singers) regularly sing songs and get some
alms. A baul was recently heard singing a
song whose lyrics were widely circulated:
Didir paye hawai choti, bhaiera sob kotipati
(Mamatas slippers denote honesty, but her
brothers are minting money). The singer
sang his song without restraint and without fear of confrontation from supporters
of Banerjee. This happens only when there
is an endorsement of the views expressed.
No Viable Alternative
There were indeed reasons for popular discontentment against the ruling party, but
the hurriedly patched-up alliance that took
shape only a month before the elections
could not present itself as a viable alternative to the incumbent regime. The organisational weakness of the left was also an
important factor. Despite these shortcomings, the CongressLeft Front combine
got 38.2% of votes, 1% less than what they
had obtained in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP)
vote share came down from 17% to 10.2%.
In 2014, the BJPs vote share in West
Bengal was bolstered not only by the Modi
wave, but also by the 2.5%3% Gorkha
votes the party won in Darjeeling. This
year, the BJPs vote share has depleted by
around 4%4.5% in this hilly district. The
TMCs overall vote share in the state rose
from 39.9% in 2014 to 44.9% in 2016. If
post-poll social media posts by the Akhil
Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and
the Hindu Sanhati Manch congratulating
Mamata Banerjee for her spectacular
victory are anything to go by, then the
possibility of tactical voting by a section of
the supporters of the BJP and the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to defeat
candidates of the CongressLeft Front
alliance cannot be ruled out.
Keeping an eye on 2019 general elections, the BJP would be looking for possible
supporters or partners (direct or indirect,
25

2016 STATE ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS

overt or covert) in areas where it is weak,

including West Bengal. In the recent past,
Banerjee and her colleagues have consistently not raised issues with which the BJP
has been attacked by its political opponents, such as the issue of intolerance to
free expression. When supporters of the
BJP demonstrated in front of the Jadavpur University campus, threatened
the vice chancellor and sought to intimidate a section of the students alike, the
state government and TMC supporters
were conspicuously silent. After her resounding victory, the chief minister made
it amply clear that the BJP is not a pariah
as far as her party is concerned.
What Next?
With this massive mandate in her favour,
Mamata Banerjee would like to spread
her wings. She has been nursing ambitions of playing a larger role in national
politics. By inviting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, the King of Bhutan, and the chief ministers of Uttar
Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi and Tamil Nadu,
she has made her intentions clear.

26

The chief minister is evidently hopeful

that she and her party would play an
important role in government formation
after the 2019 general elections. In the
international arena, she wants due recognition to be given to her as a key player in Indias Look East policy. What role
she will play in shaping the Teesta River
water sharing treaty between India and
Bangladesh, remains to be seen. She had,
in September 2011, objected to the terms
of the treaty and refused to accompany
the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
to Dhaka. As a wily politician, Banerjee
will bargain hard with New Delhi to get
something tangible (perhaps a relief in
the states debt burden) before she agrees
to any new deal on sharing the Teesta
waters. While it is difficult to predict her
future course of action, it is almost certain that she will continue to implement
welfare schemes with fresh vigour.

have been much worse for both. Unlike in

West Bengal where the Congress emerged
stronger and bigger than the Left, at the
national level, the Congress got a drubbing in Kerala and Assam. Its alliance
with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
(DMK) in Tamil Nadu failed to defeat J
Jayalalithaas All India Anna Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). There is
a pressing need for the Congress to form
alliances with regional partners.
The successful experiment in Bihar
could not be repeated in Bengal. But the
urge to form a front against the BJP will
draw the Congress closer to the left. The
leaders of the left and the Congress in
Bengal have already reaffirmed their
faith in the alliance. The panchayat elections in the state are due in 2018. It is to
be seen whether the alliance would become active again only at the time of election or remain alive on the ground intermittently during the coming two years.

Whither Alliance?
As details of the poll results became available, the home truth became amply clear
to the CongressLeft Front combine. Had
there been no alliance, the result would

References
Telegraph (2016): Stay on Civic Police Hiring,
29 April, viewed on 23 May 2016, http://www.
telegraphindia.com/1160429/jsp/bengal/story_82858.jsp#.V0RWmpF97IV.

may 28, 2016

vol lI no 22

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly