 "For Mamata, Right is the new Left")
The writing on the wall for the Left leaders was clear much before the "humiliating" meeting with Banerjee. In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, she had designated BJP her primary foe, not the Left. She had spurned the initial overtures of BJP as that would have driven away the Muslims from her party - at 26 per cent per cent of the population, they are a significant political constituency in the state. BJP's vote share in the 2014 general elections was 16.8 per cent, up sharply from 6 per cent in the 2009 elections. The latest by-poll results have further established BJP's status as Banerjee's main rival in West Bengal. The Left's candidates lost their deposits in the two Assembly seats, Chowringhee and Basirhat Dakshin. BJP, on the other hand, won Basirhat Dakshin and ended second in Chowringhee - it was won by the Trinamool Congress with a margin of 14,000 votes. The Congress came third in both the seats. The Trinamool Congress campaign in Basirhat Dakshin was star-studded. Six cabinet minister, three members of Parliament and a handful of Tollywood actors literally camped in the constituency. But their efforts came to naught.
The results marked BJP's entry into the West Bengal Assembly for the first time on its own mettle, while the Trinamool Congress stood its ground. But that BJP is gaining mindshare in what was once a Left bastion cannot be denied. The state goes to polls in 2016. What perhaps bothers Banerjee is the growing evidence of the involvement of her party members in the Saradha scam that's being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The Serious Frauds Investigations Office (SFIO) has already submitted its report on the ponzi scheme.
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The SFIO, which investigated 14 Saradha group firms, found that they were running ponzi schemes. Though Saradha's collections are still quite hazy, according to figures collected by different investigating agencies, it is in the region of Rs 2,400 crore. But Saradha is not an isolated case. Between 2009 and 2011 (which coincides with the rise of Banerjee) there was a proliferation of ponzi schemes in West Bengal. It would not be an exaggeration that these companies were the backbone of Bengal's economy.
Loud slogans against Banerjee were raised by the crowds at a recent rally addressed by BJP President Amit Shah. The Left and the Congress were quick to latch on to it.
For the first time, the allegations of impropriety in the Saradha scam have reached Banerjee's doorstep. First, a deal inked between the Railways and Saradha when Banerjee was the Union railways minister came to light. The deal between the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation and Saradha Tours and Travels Pvt Ltd was for a 15 days-14 night special tourist package in South India titled "Bharat Tirath". with the Saradha Tours as the agent. Next, former West Bengal director-general of police and Trinamool Congress vice-president, Rajat Majumdar, was arrested for misappropriation of funds, conspiracy and cheating. And then, Trinamool Congress MP Kunal Ghosh, a former head of the media arm of Saradha who is now in custody, spewed venom at Banerjee. "If anyone has benefited from Saradha media, then it's Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee," he said.
There is also the allegation that the Saradha scam money may have been taken abroad for illegal activities.
Saradha depositors, numbering some 1.25 million, are mostly from the rural and semi-urban segments. That ought to have spoiled Banerjee's prospects in villages and small towns. But what is baffling political analysts is that in Basirhat Dakshin, which comprises rural as well as urban settlements, it was the people from the rural areas who voted in favour of the Trinamool Congress. When the counting started, the Trinamool Congress was leading by around 15,000 votes, but as it entered the urban settlements, the gap narrowed. Finally, the BJP candidate won. Were these rural voters not affected by Saradha? Again, if urban sensibilities prevailed over the rural in deciphering the financial scandal, what happened in Chowringhee (it was won by the Trinamool Congress) which is completely urban? There are no direct answers, but some theories are doing the rounds.
One of the reasons why Saradha hasn't had the kind of impact that Singur or Nandigram had could be the muted role of civil society in it. When the Left Front bulldozed into Singur or Nandigram, West Bengal's intellectuals took it upon themselves to "speak the truth and expose the lies" the way Noam Chomsky would have wanted them to.
The intellectuals - writer and social activist Mahasweta Devi; painters Shuvaprasanna and Jogen Chowdhury; theatre personalities Bratya Basu, Bibhas Chakraborty, Arpita Ghosh, Kaushik Sen and Shaoli Mitra; actor and film director Aparna Sen; poet Joy Goswami; academic Sunanda Sanyal; former bureaucrat Debabrata Bandyopadhyay - shouted themselves hoarse right through 2009-2011 with their "Paribartan Chai" (we want change) campaign against the Left. That many of these intellectuals are adversaries of Banerjee today is another matter; those who stayed on were rewarded handsomely, though.
None of the high voltage campaign, however, happened when the Saradha scam came to light, or when the ruling party's involvement with the scam's perpetrators were being talked about, possibly because at the end of it, the depositors were entrapped in their greed. Also, many say there is no alternative to Banerjee in West Bengal today; if she is brought down, it might push the state back by a few more years. "The Left appears to have emerged as the most hated party; they ended last in the two seats," a political commentator says. The Congress was not a force to reckon with during the Left regime; after its break up with the Trinamool Congress in 2012, the party seems to have weakened further.
That leaves BJP. Though it has made handsome electoral gains, not everybody is sure of its capability to deliver good governance in the state. "BJP is rising and is getting anti-Trinamool Congress votes, but it is organisationally weak," Sabysachi Basu Ray Chaudhury, professor of political science at the Rabindra Bharati University, points out. So, barring unforeseen circumstances, the Trinamool Congress should get another term in 2016 when West Bengal Assembly elections are held. There is, however, caution ahead: municipal elections are due next year. The Calcutta High Court has directed that elections to 10 municipalities have to be held by January 31, 2015 and the remaining seven civic bodies by July 31. Many of these municipal bodies are in suburban areas. The spectre of Saradha may loom large on the results.
Right now, what's making headlines, however, is police excesses on students at the elite Jadavpur University. Banerjee couldn't have asked for more.
ARRESTED BY CBI IN THE SARADHA SCAM
Debabrata Sarkar
Executive committee member of East Bengal Club
Sandhir Agarwal
Kolkata-based businessman
Rajat Majumdar
Former DGP and senior TMC leader
Kunal Ghosh
Former TMC MP
WHAT THE SFIO REPORT SAYS
- 14 Saradha group companies guilty of running ponzi schemes
- The companies, their promoters, directors and managerial personnel violated various provisions of Companies Act 1956
- Evidence of violation of several provisions of the Indian Penal Code and Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978