People's Democracy

WEST BENGAL

The Myth Of A Mahajot And The Reality
LF Wins Katwa, Purulia Lok Sabha By-Elections

Nilotpal Basu

NEWSPAPERS all over, particularly Bengali vernacular ones, reported with screaming headlines the news of Sonia Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee congratulating each other on the `great performance’ of their respective parties. This reported backslapping is in the wake of the results of the by elections to three Lok Sabha seats (Katwa, Purulia and Maldah) and an assembly seat (Bongaon). For the last few years there has been an obsessive inclination of the opposition in West Bengal to forge a “mahajot”, meaning a single opposition candidate against the Left Front. That this political approach is devoid of any sense of principle and smacks of opportunism and dishonesty has been several times brought out by the CPI(M) and the Left Front. But that has done little to dampen their enthusiasm. The Congress, particularly in the past, had claimed it cannot align with Mamata Banerjee-led TMC so long as she refuses to disassociate with the BJP. But this time even that fig leaf of formal political expediency was removed. This perhaps with very good reasons. Because, despite the best efforts of the Election Commission, the people of West Bengal gave such a severe electoral drubbing to all shades of opposition, the obsession of mahajot has revived with vengeance.

Mamata Banerjee and the TMC of course remain vague on the question of disassociation from the BJP and the NDA. But apparently in reverence to the memories of Ghani Khan Chaudhury, it did not put up its candidate against Ghani Khan’s brother in Maldah. In Purulia, where such a fig leaf of reverence to any memory was unavailable, it put up a NDA partner, the JD(U) (which otherwise can only be found on paper). In return for this magnanimous gesture, the Congress did not put up its candidate in Katwa and Bongaon. The BJP though visibly angry and upset could do little other than indulging in few protestations and putting up a token presence in Maldah. But its state president made it very clear that the TMC is still part of the NDA and this is no permanent rupture. The `revered memory’ approach and the hypocrisy thereto are completely exposed when the TMC did not put up Bongaon sitting MLA’s son who was keen on contesting and filed his nomination papers as an independent. That the Trinamul managed to force his withdrawal is however a different story.

The result was that the Left Front has retained its two seats in Katwa and Purulia Lok Sabha constituencies, Maldah has gone to Congress and Bongoan has been retained by TMC. This has provoked the self-congratulatory moves by leaders of the Congress and the TMC. Other than the top leaders there is a beeline among the Congress leaders of the state to pose these results as a great vindication of the mahajot theory. However, the results and particularly the percentage of vote share has a completely different story to tell.

In Katwa, the CPI(M) candidate supported by its Left allies secured 51.2 per cent votes in 2004 Lok Sabha elections. It has now jumped to 60.32 per cent, an increase of a staggering 9.12 per cent. During 2004, TMC polled 36.36 per cent and the Congress 6.28 per cent votes. Had the mahajot theory been true, the vote share of the Trinamul candidate in these by-elections would have gone up to 42.64 per cent through a mere arithmetic adjustment. It has not been so. The Trinamul has polled only 39.67 per cent and the CPI(M) has won by a staggering margin of 1,85,334 votes. Similarly, in Purulia the Left Front vote has gone up from 48.94 per cent to 53.13 per cent. The opposition Congress candidate polled 40.92 per cent but importantly this is 3 per cent less than the combined vote share of Congress and Trinuamul in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. In Maldah, the vote share of the Left Front has gone up by 5.5 per cent while the vote share of the Congress has gone up by a meagre 2 per cent although the TMC got 10.19 per cent votes in 2004 Lok Sabha elections. In Bongaon, the Left Front vote share has come down by a marginal 0.4 per cent while the TMC vote share has gone up by 1 per cent.

It is clear from the detailed results that the unprincipled and opportunist coming together of different opposition parties, completely devoid of any common programmatic approach to important political questions, is unacceptable to the people. In the coming days the struggle against opportunism in politics will continue and will reinforce the principled politics of the Left in the service of the people and the development of the state. The bankruptcy of the opposition will be further exposed.

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