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ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS 2001
West Bengal
COUNTER REVOLUTION
When former West
Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu anointed Buddhadev Bhattacharya as his
successor, people had misgivings about the seemingly aloof home (police)
and information and cultural affairs minister. Would the Marquez-reading,
Bunuel-watching parvenu be able to reach out to the masses? Six months
into his new job, Bhattacharya is smashing every myth.
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CAN
THE LEFT HOLD?
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| 1996
Assembly elections |
| Total Seats: 294 |
Seats won |
%Votes |
| CPI (M)+ |
192 |
48.58 |
| Congress |
83 |
39.47 |
| BJP |
0 |
06.45 |
| 1999 Parliamentary elections |
Total
Seats: 42 |
Seats won |
Assembly Segment Leads |
% Votes |
| CPI (M)+ |
29 |
190 |
46.74 |
| TC-BJP |
10 |
81 |
37.17 |
| Congress |
3 |
20 |
13.29 |
Even after Basu stepped down in November 2000,
it took Bhattacharya some time to find his voice in the government. This
prompted Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee- the woman who wants
Bhattacharya's job more than anything in the world-to carp, "The
state is being run by two chief ministers."
Parallels do exist between the two. Bhattacharya,
like Basu, is known to be the liberal face of Marxists. In May 1997, Basu
got a shot at being the prime minister. At the central committee meeting
which took up the resolution, only two votes cast by the Bengal communists
were in favour of the move. One of them was Bhattacharya's. He could see
the "historic blunder" coming.
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| CLASH OF TITANS: Bhattacharya
(right) has matched Mamata's campaigning stride by stride despite
vastly varying temperaments |
At 56, Bhattacharya is also the young blood in
a party of geriatrics. This does create problems. His contemporaries,
many of whom are ministers, aren't always willing to listen to him. Even
so, in the war for Writers' Buildings, Bhattacharya is just what the doctor
ordered. Especially as an antidote to Mamata.
For one, he has a spotless reputation. His humble
origins (he studied at a Bengali-medium school), his no-frills lifestyle
(he refuses to move out of his 720-sq ft flat) and now his legwork, all
match Mamata's. The man who was once uncomfortable with the business community
is today mouthing it mantras, talking industry and investments and promising
clampdowns on trade unions. Recently, through a slew of circulars, Bhattacharya
tried to induce some (short-lived) discipline in government departments
by checking expenditure and tardiness.
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Pranab Mukherjee: UNWILLING
ALLY
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UNEASY BOND:Mukherjee is putting
up a brave front
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Nobody, but nobody in the Bengal PCC, from President
Pranab Mukherjee downwards, is enthused about the bond with Trinamool.
The alliance is seen as having been imposed by Congress President
Sonia Gandhi and forged by AICC General Secretary Kamal Nath. In
the 1996 assembly elections, the party had won 83 seats and had
45 MLAs even after the1998 split, but now it has managed to wrest
only 56 seats from its breakaway faction. Right from the outset
Mukherjee refused to participate in the seat-sharing talks. His
supporters, including Somen Mitra and Atish Sinha, remained steadfast
about not parting with seats in north Bengal, where Mamata desperately
needed a foothold.
While Mukherjee admits there will be adjustment
problems, he insists everything will be sorted out by polling day.
He even terms the exit of the Trinamool from the NDA a political
achievement, saying, “It is not important how much the Congress
had to sacrifice. There was no ideological barrier after the Trinamool
quit the NDA. In fact, I have been pursuing the tie-up for the past
seven months. We had to come together to defeat the Left Front.”
Pranabbabu, former finance minister, sounds convincing—almost.
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But Bhattacharya is very much a product of his
party, while Mamata has grown through her own charisma-or idiosyncrasies.
A few weeks ago, while Congress and Trinamool leaders were negotiating
an alliance, Mamata upped and disappeared. She locked herself in a room
and was busy playing tunes from Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai on her synthesiser.
In her off-white cotton saree, she is the picture of studied simplicity.
From publicly "hanging" herself in the 1980s to inviting Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to her security-challenged two-room house
a year ago, there's no attention-grabber quite like "Didi".
At 46, Mamata is a firm believer in the politics of gimmickry and has
punctuated her three-decade career with stunts.
Yet, her supporters have cut through the slack
of well-publicised exhibitionism to now look upon Mamata as the only serious
alternative to 24 years of Left Front rule. No doubt the woman who was
once "driven out" of the Congress has worked hard to get where
she is. Today, Mamata is being wooed by the high command of her former
party, marginalising local Congresswallahs like Somen Mitra.
Mamata is everything a challenger should be:
populist, irreverent and anti-establishment. But her stubbornness and
volatile temperament could cost her heavily. Her sudden decision to break
her two-year relationship with the BJP just weeks shy of the polls is
a case in point. But then she likes walking the tightrope. Will Bhattacharya
give her right of way?
-Labonita Ghosh
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