Seeds of Modi-Didi battle sown in bypolls

Meghdeep Bhattacharya & Avijit Sinha, TT, Calcutta, Nov. 22: The results of the three bypolls in Bengal, which Trinamul swept, indicate that the state's political battleground could be dominated by Mamata Banerjee and Narendra Modi, leaders and analysts said today.

Trinamul's vote share was close to 60 per cent in the Tamluk (East Midnapore) and Cooch Behar Lok Sabha seats and over 77 per cent in the Manteswar (Burdwan) Assembly constituency.

Leaders of Bengal's ruling party rejoiced over the significant increase in Trinamul's victory margins in the three seats over the May Assembly election figures and held it up as an example of Mamata Banerjee's soaring popularity. Trinamul led in all 15 Assembly segments (Manteswar and seven each in the two Lok Sabha seats). In the Assembly polls earlier this year, Trinamul had lost four of these 15. The victory margin in Manteswar zoomed to 1.27 lakh from 706 in the May elections.

A closer look at the numbers, however, suggested that the nature of future battles in Bengal could change because of the BJP's gains in different parts of the state, especially in districts like East Midnapore and Burdwan that have turned into Trinamul bastions after decades of Left dominance.

The BJP, despite having made little organisational progress, has improved its performance in all the three seats.

"The Left continues to bleed. The Congress, on its own, is struggling for survival. Their votes are going to Trinamul, mostly. Whatever remains is going to the BJP," a minister in Mamata's cabinet said.

Political analysts pointed out that Mamata, who has been at the forefront of the protests against the Centre's implementation of the demonetisation drive, had improved her party's margins by eating into the Left's votes.

"Mamata is emerging as the favourite of a substantial chunk of the section that had traditionally been Left-oriented. The Left and the Congress have been relegated to the sidelines, for now," said Maidul Islam, assistant professor of political science, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences. "The BJP, however, is steadily occupying the Right-wing space and hence has grown significantly," he added.

The results indicate the BJP has fared well in the Assembly segments of Cooch Behar North and South, under which fall Cooch Behar town and its suburbs. "The Left has performed miserably in Cooch Behar North, the sole Assembly seat it won in the district a few months ago," a CPM state secretariat member said.

A political analyst said: "Trinamul was sure to win the Cooch Behar seat. But the margin of 4.17 lakh would have been less if the BJP had adequate organisational base in the rural areas," he said.

The BJP's performance in places like Nandigram, which is part of the Tamluk parliamentary seat, and Manteswar, where it was a non-entity even this summer, has taken many by surprise. The BJP's podium finish in Nandigram, CPM sources said, showed that anti-Mamata voters were choosing the BJP, not the Left.

Mamata attributed the huge margins to the Centre's demonetisation drive.

"This is a verdict of popular rebellion against demonetisation," she said this afternoon on her way to Delhi. "The Centre is being run in a Hitler-esque manner. That is what the people have rejected in these bypolls," she added.

In Delhi, the chief minister said she would hold a demonstration at Jantar Mantar tomorrow and urged all sections of society to "organise your own protests".

Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh said his party had grown in strength because people had favoured demonetisation. "Or else why would we do so well in comparison to the Left and the Congress, who are fighting against it?"