The Left seems in a temper to combat it out in West Bengal. It has its again to the wall, having misplaced its erstwhile bastions of Tripura and Bengal through the years. In Kerala, the one state the Left guidelines, the Congress is difficult it within the race to kind the following authorities.
In Bengal, the Left’s decline has been sharp. Not solely did it draw a clean right here within the 2019 nationwide elections, but in addition a piece of its conventional supporters shifted to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as theorised by its leaders and analysts alike. This part, amongst different elements, led to the saffron social gathering profitable 18 of the state’s Lok Sabha 42 seats — a efficiency that bolstered its 2021 bid.
Even although the narrative of the continuing Bengal elections is basically centred across the BJP and the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), the Left wish to show political pundits incorrect. For its future in electoral democracy is at stake.
“I think it won’t be a repeat of what happened in the Lok Sabha polls. The people know that both the BJP and the TMC are in a dummy fight…they are actually one. Its only us who are offering a real alternative. People vote differently in state polls and the Left will do well,” mentioned Mohammed Salim, a senior chief of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M).
On the bottom, the Left cuts a sorry determine in Bengal, which it had dominated for 34 years. From 50% in 2006, its vote share fell to 40% in 2011, when the TMC got here to energy on the again of agitations towards land acquisitions. The Left’s vote share plunged additional — to 26% — within the 2016 meeting polls, when it fared worse than its ally, the Congress.
After coming to energy, chief minister Mamata Banerjee, a former Congress chief who learnt her politics from the Left, ensured that her arch-rivals have been decimated within the state. A big part of CPI(M) staff joined the TMC and circumstances have been filed towards high Left leaders. The cadres that didn’t yield alleged intimidation by the TMC — one of many causes behind lots of them gravitating in direction of the BJP, which they believed would have the ability to present them safety. It was an insult the Left couldn’t overlook.
The Left’s displaying, in a approach, would have a big impression within the fiercely fought Bengal elections. If the Left manages to persuade supporters that tilted in direction of the BJP to return, it is going to damage the saffron camp. On the opposite hand, if its alliance with the Congress and Furfura Sharif cleric Abbas Siddiqui’s Indian Secular Front (ISF) causes a serious break up in Muslim votes, the TMC could possibly be hit exhausting. If it manages to do each, that can add one other fascinating dimension to an already-thrilling contest.
On the bottom, the issue with the Left seems to be that even its most trusted voters are dismissive about its winnability. The Left’s major job can be to reassure the doubters who’re asking why they need to vote for a celebration that’s going to lose anyway.
It has tried to reply that query in two methods. One, by stitching up a strategic alliance with the ISF to dent the TMC’s Muslim vote base; the ISF is believed to have some affect in Hooghly and components of Howrah. Second, it has gone for a picture makeover by fielding younger and girls candidates. For instance, in Nandigram, the place the CM is up towards former social gathering colleague Suvendu Adhikari, the Left has performed the girl card by fielding Meenakshi Mukherjee. Additionally, the Left has additionally tried to shed its sombre picture by releasing a number of glossy social media movies to win over the youth.
The alliance with the ISF, nonetheless, has a flip facet so far as the secular Left is worried. The coalition has made a piece of its core voters uneasy and smacks of desperation. But that could be the least of the Left’s concern for the reason that combat is about political relevance.
Indrani Mukherjee, who’s contesting Naihati — it falls in BJP MP Arjun Singh’s Barrackpore stronghold — mentioned: “It’s not the BJP or the TMC but BJPmul (BJP+Trinamool) that is contesting against us. They are a B-Team of each other, and so the Left is the real alternative. We have given so much to Bengal, and we understand Bengal.”
The chief minister could be in a dilemma of types in relation to the Left’s efficiency. On one hand, she wouldn’t need communists to dent her Muslim assist base. The previous few rounds of the eight-phase polling is essential for the TMC with seats up for grabs in minority-dominated Malda, Murshidabad and North Dinajpur, the place Banerjee has appealed to Muslims to not break up their votes.
On the opposite hand, she won’t need the Left to give up fully and switch its votes to an aggressive BJP. Both communists and the CM would therefore hope the shift from vaam, or left, to Ram wouldn’t comply with the sample seen in 2019. Even as Banerjee has accused the Left-Congress-ISF of working in tandem with the BJP amidst talks of a attainable division of Muslim votes, there was a buzz within the state’s political circles that two high leaders of the Left and the TMC have mentioned the opportunity of working collectively in a post-poll situation if the numbers aren’t beneficial for both. For each, the BJP is the “common enemy”.
CPI(M) chief Salim mentioned: “Well, she should have realised this when she decided to break our party when she came to power in 2011. She did not let go of any opportunity to harm us.”
With the animosity between the 2 sworn enemies working deep, it could be fascinating to see how a attainable cooperation, if any, unfolds.
Political analyst Subir Bhoumick mentioned the TMC was going gradual on the Left with the BJP rising as its principal enemy. “That has given Left supporters and voters a sense of security and political space they did not enjoy after they lost in 2011. The Left also realises that if the BJP comes to power, it will finish them as well as the TMC, as (former Congress CM) Siddhartha Shankar Ray did with the Naxalites in the 1970s. So, most traditional Left voters will vote for the Left this time.”
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