Politics is notorious for its strange bedfellows. But if Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress could be a coalition partner first of the Bharatiya Janata Party and then of the Congress, there is no reason why the latter should not join hands with the CPI(M) to fight the May election for 294 West Bengal state assembly seats. As Somnath Chatterjee, the former Lok Sabha speaker, sees it, an alliance between the Congress and the Left Front is not a “political option but a necessity.”
That doesn’t mean a pact has been signed, sealed and delivered. But as the gloves are coming off for what promises to be a no holds barred fight, grassroots workers in some West Bengal districts seem to have decided to pre-empt the leadership and take their own decision. That has resulted in a novel election poster plastering some walls in rural West Bengal showing the Marxist Hammer, Sickle and Star superimposed on the Congress Hand. One doesn’t know if the initiative for this new poll symbol came from the Congress or Marxist ranks, but it does indicate a determination among ordinary party workers not only to deny Ms Banerjee a second term but also to defend Bengal’s turf against inroads by the saffron brigade.
Didi or Elder Sister, as the chief minister is popularly called, is defiant about the challenge from what she calls an “unholy” alliance. “I heard that CPI(M) and Congress are trying to forge an alliance” she told legislators recently. “I want this alliance to be made official. The people will give a befitting reply.” Full-page advertisements in local newspapers extolling the chief minister and the progress the state has allegedly made under her guidance, and eulogistic radio and television broadcasts, indicate she is not taking the threat lightly. Aware of the complaints of middle class urban voters, she has set about wooing them by festooning Calcutta with lights so that parts of the city resemble a glittering amusement park.
Somehow, she seems unable to rise above gaudy but trivial symbols. Having repeatedly promised to turn Calcutta into London, she has had a stunted replica of the British Houses of Parliament tower with Big Ben erected on the road into the city from the airport. It is well made but looks thoroughly incongruous in a crowded and ramshackle neighbourhood. Rumour has it that the next stage in the attempt to emulate London will include a replica of the giant Ferris wheel on the South Bank of the Thames that is known as the London Eye or Millennium Wheel.
The middle class is not impressed. However, many slum dwellers and villagers still swear by Didi. But some diehard Congress and Marxist workers also hope to oust her through an alliance that marks a new development in West Bengal’s turgid politics. Ms Banerjee has always regarded the CPI(M) as her Enemy No.1. Accusing Marxist goons of trying to murder her, for a long time she tied a red rag round her head like a bandage. Her relationship with Congress is more complex. She began her political life in the party, and was a favourite of the State’s last Congress chief minister, Siddhartha Shankar Ray. There wasn’t an iota of ideology in her leaving the party in high dudgeon. Her quarrel was with some heavyweights of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee. With Ray fading out of State politics, she formed her own dissident Trinamool Congress on New Year’s Day, 1998.
The Congress and Trinamool jointly fought West Bengal’s 2011 assembly elections, but the credit for ending 34 years of the Marxist-dominated Left Front’s rule goes entirely to Ms Banerjee and her promise of “Parivartan” or change. Villagers hailed her as Goddess Durga who had vanquished Asura. Middle class urban voters were less enamoured but willing to give a chance to someone who offered an alternative to CPI(M) authoritarianism. However, her coalition with the Congress came to an end in September 2012 when she left the UPA at the Centre.
A great deal of uncertainty still surrounds the proposed CPI(M)-Congress joint front. Self-deprecatingly calling himself a “political nonentity”, Chatterjee says that “in the present political context, it is extremely essential for all opposition forces to come together in bringing about a change in the government and in restoring a civilised democratic administration in West Bengal.” The former Marxist chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, agrees. He used a public meeting at Singur, where once upon a time Tata was supposed to produce the Nano people’s car, to openly appeal to Congressmen to join the Left Front in defeating Trinamool. It was the first such call from a public platform. The CPI(M)’s state secretary, Surjya Kanta Mishra, endorsed Bhattacharjee’s appeal. But only two days later the party general secretary, Sitaram Yechury, poured cold water on the notion, bluntly saying there would be no front or alliance with the Congress.
If the CPI(M) is being coy, so is the Congress. Their stand is that while the party leadership is not over-anxious to ally itself with the Marxists, it cannot afford to ignore the views of the rank and file. Adhir Chowdhury, the West Bengal Congress president, said after leading a delegation of State Congress politicians to meet Rahul Gandhi last month, “It is not that I am an advocate of an alliance, but it is the pressure of the grassroots-level workers who are in favour of such a tie-up.” What Gandhi said wasn’t reported. Although Chowdhury maintains that party workers are insisting on an alliance with the Marxists to oust Didi’s “undemocratic” regime, he dare not go it alone. By saying that the party high command would take a call he exposed the weakness and vulnerability of the State Congress. It is hardly in a strong enough position to take on the powerfully entrenched Trinamool Congress.
Trinamool leaders are anxious to broadcast that Sonia Gandhi does not favour such an arrangement. Sudip Bandyopadhyay, one of Didi’s senior colleagues, claims that he “suddenly” met the Congress president while returning from New Delhi (possibly at the airport) and asked her about it. “She instead asked me whether any such alliance was happening. She told me that no such news has reached her so far.” Bandyopadhyay concluded that “it is apparent that such an alliance is not taking place” but admitted the CPI(M) and Congress were discussing seat adjustments.
Some observers believe that despite what the top Marxist and Congress leaders might say, they have tacitly approved of an alliance by not objecting to the Hand and Hammer symbol. It is also pointed out that there have been some small signs of cooperation between trades unions and students organisations and in certain municipal elections. All this can mean fierce electoral battles and eruptions of violence. But despite her autocratic ways and lacklustre political aides, neither singly nor jointly can the CPI(M) or Congress dislodge Trinamool. Didi is safe in her kursi.
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