This victory confirms Mamata Banerjee as a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly which will allow her to continue as Chief Minister of West Bengal.
According to the Election Commission of India, Mamata Banerjee bagged 84,709 votes while Priyanka Tibrewal of the BJP pocketed 26,320. Communist Party of India – Marxists – CPI (M) leader Srijib Biswas received 4,201 votes. The election was necessitated after State minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, who won the assembly election from Bhabanipur in south Kolkata in May, resigned from the seat to pave the way for Mamata Banerjee.
Earlier this year in May, Mamata had contested the Assembly poll from Nandigram and lost to BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari by a margin of 1,956 votes. However, she was unanimously elected Chief Minister by the TMC legislature party after the party’s victory in the Assembly polls in May 2021.
“The numbers of voters at Bhabanipur are relatively less and about 1.15 lakh votes were polled this time. This time we have won by a margin of 58,832 votes,” Mamata Banerjee told media persons outside her residence. She had represented Bhabanipur seat in 2011 and 2016. In the 2021 Assembly poll, TMC candidate Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay had defeated BJP Rudranil Ghosh by a margin of 28,790 votes.
With this victory, Mamata has received a shot in the arm after her defeat in Nandigram and this will allow her to play her cards at the national level politics and projecting her party TMC as an alternative to the Congress. The recent shift of old time Congress leaders to the TMC also signifies that many in Congress are not ‘comfortable’ and are looking for decisive leadership which lately has gone down in the age old Congress party. Testimony to this fact is clearly visible in the Congress-ruled states of Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.
TMC finds this space and believes that it can emerge as stronger party than Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and others to face the BJP in 2024 general elections. Efforts are already on in several States in India by welcoming the disgruntled Congress leaders and projecting TMC as a national party.
In fact, TMC Rajya Sabha member Derek O’Brien believes that when one is trying to expand and “that is what we are doing under our new general secretary, the dynamic young man Abhishek Banerjee, and Mamata Banerjee, the view is different. You have to choose your battlefield.” For TMC, Tripura is a natural choice as both the States share a common language of Bengali. Tripura is a small north-eastern State. Goa too is a small State and TMC is eyeing small States first to get a foothold in the national platform. To contest in larger States, like in the upcoming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, TMC would require time, people, power and resources. “UP will come later, maybe in 2024. That’s why Tripura assembly 2023 and Goa 2022. We have identified two small States where the BJP has to be defeated. Modi and Shah have to be defeated. That’s the strategy,” Derek O’Brien has told media.
The same resonated about a fortnight ago in TMC internal meeting when another senior TMC Member of Parliament Sudip Bandyopadhyay said that it is West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and not Rahul Gandhi, who is the face of opposition against Narendra Modi. In fact he went on say that, “We are not talking about an alliance without the Congress. I have observed Rahul Gandhi for a long time and he has not developed himself as an alternative to Modi.”
Mamata, however, has so far maintained that for her opposition unity matters more than the her designation and for a politician like her who has been a street fighter in early 1990s against the Jyoti Basu led-CPI(M) government, it would be too early to commit as the general elections are still far away. However, it is very clear that TMC now sees an opportunity to nudge other opposition parties and emerge as the leader against the BJP.
Recently, on the World Tourism Day on Tuesday, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant took a dig at the new political entrants from other States in Goa by saying that ‘political tourism is expected to pick up in the State in the next six months’’ but the same has been negated by the TMC by mentioning that they are very serious this time. With the Assembly polls drawing close, it is also a warning to the political parties, especially for the BJP, Congress and AAP in Goa who will have to keep their flocks together.
