The first phase of the eight phases, in a bitterly fought State Assembly election in West Bengal is over and the fate of 30 candidates has been sealed. The focus has now shifted to Nandigram where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamul Congress (TMC) is contesting against her former cabinet colleague Shubhendu Adhikari who recently jumped over to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It has now become a matter of prestige for both the contestants and the stakes are really high for Chief Minister Banerjee.
The recent audio tape had revealed ‘Didi’s’ (Mamta) nervous call to one of the Nandigram district political leaders who along with Shubhendu Adhikari also jumped over to the BJP. Media reported on Saturday that the BJP released an audio tape in which Banerjee called a BJP leader and sought his help to win Nandigram. “You should help us win Nandigram. Look, I know you have some grievances, but that’s due mostly to the Adhikaris who never allowed me to get into Nandigram or East Midnapore. I will take care of everything henceforth.” The audio tape in Bengali which was released by the BJP also mentioned that Mamata had called BJP district official Pralay Pal. The BJP leader, however, refused to go along with Mamata and said he cannot betray the Adhikaris. “Didi, you called me and I am honoured. But I cannot betray the Adhikaris as they have stood by me through thick and thin,” he was heard saying in the audio clip.
Nandigram was instrumental for the historic land movement that propelled Mamata Banerjee to power by dethroning the Communist Party of India (Marxists) Left government in 2011, which ruled West Bengal for nearly 34 years. It also led to Tata Motors, which was earlier planning to set up their factory in Singur near Nandigram to shift to Gujarat. On 23 September 2008, Tatas decided to leave Singur in West Bengal. On October 3, 2008 it became official after Ratan Tata announced it in a press conference in Kolkata. With this move, many job aspirants were not only devastated but political parties whether CPM or TMC stood their ground, with no embarrassment.
The contest, which is now been seen as the West Bengal biggest electoral battle, Mamata Banerjee has decided to camp in Nandigram for the next three days starting Sunday. Nandigram will be voting in the second phase on April 1. During the next three days, the TMC chief will hold seven rallies including two roadshows on Monday and Tuesday. In fact, on Sunday the chief minister addressed a rally in Birulia, the same location where she got her foot “injured” about two weeks ago.
Shubhendu Adhikari who is the sitting MLA from Nandigram but now sailing on BJP vote, had received 67.20 per cent votes in 2016 as a TMC candidate. Nandigram is the stomping ground of Adhikari, who is confident of winning it by over 50,000 votes. The TMC, on the other hand, claims that all those votes that Adhikari got in 2016 was in the name of TMC and its leader Mamata Banerjee.
Against this backdrop one has seen that even though Banerjee managed to keep the second Modi wave at bay in the Lok Sabha polls of 2019, her party was left badly battered. She clawed her way to retain 22 of the 42 parliament seats, while the BJP shot through the roof to secure an incredible number of 18 MPs in place of only two that it had won earlier.
In the last Parliamentary elections in 2019 the BJP’s vote share in West Bengal also sky rocketed by 22.7 per cent, to equal the 40 per cent that TMC had secured in the last Lok Sabha election. Then TMC did manage to garner an additional 3.5 per cent votes in 2019, which gave it its 22 seats. Yes, Narendra Modi now feels that he is close to getting his BJP government in West Bengal too after his success in Left ruled state of Tripura.
Meanwhile, the Congress has been systematically bled by its own breakaway party, TMC, and relations are bitterly hostile. It managed, however, to send two MPs to the Lok Sabha in 2019, even as its vote share plummeted to barely 5 per cent. Not surprising that the Congress leaders like Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have yet to set their foot in West Bengal even as the first phase of polls is over.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Banerjee was among the few who could successfully halt Modi’s juggernaut and she actually added 27 seats to her kitty in the next State Assembly elections of 2016. Her TMC had secured 211 out of the 294 seats in that election, while the BJP managed to win just three seats. For BJP it is nothing to lose but to gain. The question is by how much and will that number be good enough to saddle the BJP government in West Bengal? It will be known when the ‘Pandora Box’ opens on May 2.