Wafer-thin margins push Left to power - 180 votes that could have changed the Left’s Siliguri comeback script

Avijit Sinha, TT, Siliguri, April 29: The Left Front has reached near the simple majority in the Siliguri Municipal Corporation with its three candidates defeating nearest Trinamul rivals by slender margins. 

The Left candidates won in wards 24 and 32 by 26 and 46 votes, respectively. In ward 22, the Left nominee defeated the Trinamul candidate by 108 votes. (See chart)

That means transfer of 180 votes to Trinamul in the three wards would have reduced the Left’s tally at the SMC to 20 and compelled it to approach, probably the Congress, for support. 

“These 180 votes, which is the total of the margins in the three seats, are important. In all three seats, the Left has beaten Trinamul. This means, if Trinamul had managed to secure the 180 votes, tally in the SMC would have changed. In that case, the Left Front would have been reduced to 20 seats from 23 and Trinamul’s tally would have increased to 20 from 17. In such a scenario, Trinamul, too, would have tried to form the board, like the Left,” said a political observer. 

In ward 22, the CPM’s Rinki Das has beaten Biswajit Das of Trinamul by 108 votes, while in ward 32, the CPM’s Ashim Saha defeated Trinamul’s Jaydip Nandi by 46 votes. 

The narrowest margin in the SMC was recorded in ward 24 where Shankar Ghosh of the CPM defeated Pratul Chakraborty, a former district president of Trinamul, by 26 votes. According to the observer, if the Left had lost the three seats, it would have to approach the Congress, which has secured four seats, for support. Trinamul would have also tried for the Congress backing. 

“Under such circumstances, the Congress councillors could have decided if the Left or Trinamul should form the board. The district Congress president had said earlier that the party was ready to play such a role. It is unlikely that the Left and Trinamul would ally with the BJP which has two seats,” said the observer. 

The Left also needs the support of the sole Independent to win, Arabinda Ghosh, for a simple majority. 

Shankar Ghosh, who is also the Darjeeling district DYFI secretary, said he had to face a tough battle in the polls. 

“It was indeed a tough contest in my seat. It is true that I have won by the lowest margin in the SMC but a win by even a single vote counts,” said Ghosh.

In Malbazar municipality, Trinamul rode to power by narrow margins in three wards. 

Out of 15 seats in Malbazar, Trinamul won nine, while the Left emerged victorious in four wards. Two seats went to the Congress. “If Trinamul had lost in the three seats, where the total of vote margins is 125, the Left would have secured one seat and the BJP the remaining two seats. It would have created a hung civic board,” an observer said. 

“We were confident that people would vote for Trinamul in Malbazar. It is true that margins are pretty narrow in some of the wards of Malbazar. We will surely focus on these areas to improve our support base,” Chandan Bhowmik, the vice-president of Jalpaiguri district Trinamul, said. 

There are more wards at the SMC and other civic bodies where the victory margins are narrow. 

In Siliguri, the Trinamul candidates of wards 9, 13 and 36 won by a margin of 70 votes, 45 votes and 65 votes, respectively. The Congress candidate in ward seven has won by a margin of 91 votes. 

In Malbazar, the Congress candidate in ward 5 has defeated the Trinamul rival by only four votes. In Islampur municipality, the BJP candidates have won in wards 2 and 14 by a margin of 17 and 14 votes, respectively.