POLITICS in West Bengal is getting curiouser. Mamata Banerjee, who called all the shots in Bengal politics for the past several years and with three consecutive terms in power, has been badly mauled in the assembly polls. The victorious BJP, which formed the government is not satisfied with grabbing power in the state. It is bent on decimating the Trinamool Congress, and by extension Banerjee, by encouraging a vertical split and more tumult in the regional party. Much to Banerjee’s shock, a rebel faction leader walked away with sufficient MLAs from the TMC to claim the Leader of Opposition status in the assembly. Indications are that more than half of the Trinamool MPs in parliament are already set for a break-up with the parent party and bent on joining the BJP. More might follow. The party, which aggressively “fought” the Centre, is “over” in a jiffy.
What led Banerjee to such a predicament is worth a deep study but the fact is also that a strong anti-incumbency sentiment ran through the present round of assembly polls across three states. Assam and Puducherry proved to be different. Regional satraps like MK Stalin in Tamil Nadu and Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala had to concede defeat. Like Banerjee, Stalin also faced personal defeat in his assembly constituency. Voters bundled out incumbent governments and their leaders lock, stock, and barrel with vengeance and rare frenzy. Yet, the undoing of both Banerjee and Stalin was their dynastic twist. One kept her nephew on her side and Stalin, his son. The same thing happened to two other regional satraps, Mulayam Singh in Uttar Pradesh and Lalu Prasad in Bihar; not to mention the eventual disintegration of the Thackeray family enterprise, the Shiv Sena, in Maharashtra. Such trends hurt party cohesion and lower the morale of party workers. People saw through these satraps’ games, thereby reinforcing the strength of democracy.
Mamata Banerjee has no way left now other than to try and rally forces with two other political forces she decimated in the state in the past – the Congress and the CPIM. She broke ranks with the Congress and formed the TMC, turning the tricolour party in Bengal into a non-entity. She went on to grab power and decimate the CPIM later. Now, with the BJP being the lead force in Bengal and Suvendu Adhikari as Chief Minister doing his best to finish off his former political boss, Banerjee at age 71 may not necessarily have the energy to champion her causes the way she did in the past. Rebuilding her party is in itself a difficult task considering the kinetic force with which the TMC rank and file is deserting her at this critical juncture. Allying with the Congress or the CPIM at this juncture is futile and it depends on whether the Congress will accept Mamata under the present circumstances. One after another, these parties took Bengal to its social, cultural and economic depths. Bengal is where an overdose of political aggressiveness undercut the state’s progress. The BJP exploited this situation to its best advantage.
