T V R Shenoy
Rediff
June 9, 2000
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Overseas Friends of the BJP (USA) ........... Voice: (718) 271-0453 54-15, 108th St. ............................ Fax: (718) 271-1906 Corona, NY 11368............................ WWW:http://www.ofbjp.org BJP's Website: http://www.bjp.org Title: The Left Front's Pyrrhic victory Author: T V R Shenoy Publication: Rediff Date: June 9, 2000 "Another such victory," the king of Epirus sighed after beating a Roman legion at horrendous cost, "and we are totally undone." His name was Pyrrhus, and the quip has entered the English language; a 'Pyrrhic victory' is one where winning is almost as bad as defeat. The Left Front in West Bengal is constituted of a thousand Pyrrhuses, the sole distinction being none possess the Greek monarch's realism. This explains why the Communists -- and not a few Congressmen -- are celebrating their victory in the recent local-body elections in West Bengal. So let us look at what exactly they are hailing. The Left Front won thirty-two municipalities, the Congress got thirteen, while the Trinamul Congress-Bharatiya Janata Party combine manage seven. On the face of it, you would imagine that the Marxists and the Congress (I) have reason to celebrate -- which is precisely what most of my colleagues in the media have concluded. I completely disagree. Five years ago, the Left Front won forty-five municipalities and the Congress had thirty-two. In other words, the Left Front tally has slipped by thirteen, and that of the Congress by nineteen. These are not reasons to celebrate, but to take stock of what has gone wrong. But where have all those extra municipalities gone? If the Left Front and the Congress have lost thirty-two municipalities between them, but the Trinamul Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party have just seven, where are the extra twenty-five? The answer to this is the hidden story of the local-body elections in West Bengal. There are seventeen municipalities where a Congress-Trinamul Congress-Bharatiya Janata Party Mahajot proved successful, that is where the wards won by the Congress, the Trinamul Congress, and the Bharatiya Janata Party outnumber those won by the Left Front. There are a further eight municipalities where neither the Left Front nor the Mahajot could manage an outright victory. Look closer at the seventeen municipalities won by the Mahajot. Who is the senior partner in these areas: the Congress or the alliance led by Mamta Bannerjee? There was a decisive swing in favour of the latter, with the alliance dominating fourteen of the seventeen municipalities. Which are these seventeen municipalities? There is one in Murshidabad (Kandi), five in 24 Parganas (Garulia, North Barrackpore, Bongaon, Gobordanga, and Basirhat), five in Hooghly (Bansberia, Bandyabati, Rishra, Champadani, and Chinsurah), three in Midnapore (Tamluk, Ghatak, and Kharagpur), two in Bankura (Bankura and Sonamukhi), and one in Burdwan (Dainhat). It used to be said that Mamta Bannerjee would never have any influence beyond Calcutta and its hinterland. That is demonstrably incorrect. Murshidabad, for instance, cannot be described as being in the vicinity of Calcutta by any stretch of the imagination! There is a second lesson: for the first time in decades the Left Front has clearly lost an election in its bastion of West Bengal. Five years ago, it won forty-five of the seventy-eight municipalities, a clear majority. Today, forces opposed to the Left Front -- call them Mahajot or whatever -- have control of at least thirty-seven municipalities. (That number might go up once independents are wooed in the eight hung municipalities.) That is quite a fall. In the assembly polls of 1996 the CPI-M won a simple majority; it can, if necessary, rule without the support of the smaller parties in the Left Front. Today, just four short years later, the combined forces of the Left Front could not sweep even municipal polls in the face of a divided opposition; in fact, the Left Front has been pushed back! What would have happened had Sonia Gandhi given Ghani Khan Chaudhary and Mitra their heads, allowing the proposed Mahajot to act freely and in the open? Is it too much to say that the Left Front would have lost even more ground in its own bastion? The Left Front is uncomfortably aware of how rapidly its support base is dwindling. I hear that the smaller parties in the Left Front are even more aware that most of this unpopularity is directed at the Big Brother of the alliance -- the CPI-M. If they slip out, it would give them the dual advantage of deflecting attention from themselves and of (possibly) sharing power with a Mahajot. All that lies in the future. But one thing is clear: the Mahajot was created as an instrument to halt the Left Front. It has succeeded. That, and not the performance of Mamta Bannerjee's forces, is the story of the polls.
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