If a week is a long time in politics, a month is four times as long and 34 years, a geological aeon. Polling in West Bengal’s Vidhan Sabha elections started this week. In a month’s time, the results could end a 34-year aeon.
I was 15 when the Left Front won the Assembly-Lok Sabha elections in 1977. I voted from Calcutta South and Alipore Assembly Constituency, an anecdotal indication of the rigorous polling processes of the era.
A ration card, ample facial hair and adult voice let me pretend I was my 26-year-old cousin, who was out of town. The chaps at the local poll booth knew me and my cousin. They set it up. I voted for CPI(M); that was the purpose of the impersonation.
The Left Front was supported by many genuine voters in 1977, and later. The 1980s’ land redistribution plan, “Operation Barga”, created rural goodwill. The rest of its deeds were less praiseworthy. It created a power base of unionised time-servers, in every arm of bureaucracy, including police. It enabled cadres who hawked goods on pavements and ran high-pollution public transport.
The share of industry in state GDP dropped from 27 per cent (1975-76) to 18.5 per cent (2009-10) as the shenanigans caused capital flight. Party members ran schools and colleges. English was dropped from primary school. By 2008-09, West Bengal ranked 32nd (out of 35) in the Composite Educational Development Index. Deficit budgets coloured finances appropriately. The state fisc was 43 per cent in 2009-10.
Anti-incumbency feelings were masked by the mastery of rigging and strong-arm tactics. Voters were systematically impersonated, or excluded. Bangladeshi illegals received IDs for the quid pro quo of voting the Left Front. The Opposition didn’t help itself by infighting. And so, the Left Front won time and again.
The 2006 Assembly Elections saw a statistical high. The Left Front won 233 out of 293 seats. By 2008, it had, to put it bluntly, pissed away the mandate. Nandigram, Singur, Maoist trouble, scams, all contributed to erosion of support.
In 2008, the Left Front won just 18 out of 81 municipal councils. It won only 15 of 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2009. The Trinamool Congress’ (TMC’s) internal projections suggest the TMC-Congress alliance may now take 200 of the 294 Assembly seats.
Assume that “Didi”, aka Mamata Banerjee, will soon be sitting in Writer’s Building, from which she was once ejected, while biting a policewoman. Once there, what does she do? The TMC is a presidential party. Whoever wins her ear can push through his/her agenda.
The TMC’s coherent, market-friendly manifesto details objectives and timelines. But that slick document conceals huge internal contradictions. The party line veers alarmingly from right to left, depending on the TMC talking-head you access.
One star TMC candidate is Amit Mitra, who was a pillar of the anti-Didi-camp in Singur. Now he’s being projected for a ministerial role! Will his Ficci-economics prevail? Or will the “more Left than the Left Front” ideologues who masterminded Singur call the shots?
More than economics, if she wins, Didi’s biggest challenge would lie in energising the administration. She would have to reboot the mindsets of the unionised time-servers. One analogy is that of the former Warsaw Pact nations. The Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary offer some hope that this is possible.
A 1970s Samizdat joke places Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev in a train that breaks down. Lenin gives a speech exhorting the train to repair itself. Stalin shoots the driver. Brezhnev says, “We have vodka and caviar. Let’s pretend the train is moving.” A change in government may at least ensure that attempts are made to get West Bengal moving again. It would be up to Didi to set the direction. Maybe her stint in the railway ministry will help.
