Clearing the air of suspicion whether the Centre will stall the by-election for Bhabanipur assembly seat, polling for which is scheduled for September 30 is important. For sure, the Election Commission is an autonomous body and cannot generally be influenced. The Covid pandemic has subsided and this can no longer be an excuse to hold back an election. Prima facie, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as TMC nominee is bound to have a cakewalk there, it being the family turf and base of her political leadership. But no election can be predicted with absolute confidence. No one had thought Banerjee would be mauled by her estranged associate Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram this year.
With the kind of aura that Banerjee has among the women in the state, in particular the BJP fooled itself by targeting her beyond the normal in the last assembly polls. The Muslim consolidation added to Trinamool Congress’ might there. In the end, she proved to be a giant. It is with this profile that she’s entering the fray in Bhabanipur. However, this constituency is different from the rest of West Bengal. It has a large concentration of the mercantile community, the Gujaratis and Marwaris, and a stock of South Indians and Biharis as well. It is cosmopolitan in nature and yet essentially Bengali in its spirit by virtue also of the presence of the Kali shrine etc there. For Banerjee, who lives a stone’s throw away from the shrine, this counterweight to the mix of other communities there cannot be wished away. She will now have to course through these two influences.
No one in their right senses would want to defeat the CM at this season of her glory, she having vanquished the BJP in the electoral arena with rare grit and determination even as she was wheel-chair-bound. It’s this fighting spirit that keeps her going. A moot point is, whether such reckless fights with the Centre will ultimately do any good to West Bengal. What she tries to prove is that she’s the principal alternative to Narendra Modi for the PM seat. Looking back, the Communists undercut Bengal’s growth for over 30 years by aggressive trade unionism and constant struggle with the Congress-led central governments. Banerjee is doing the same with the BJP government at the Centre. Those who punch above their weight will often have a huge price to pay. So with West Bengal that has lost its high-profile status and reduced itself to the level of a poor state.
