Mamata Banerjee’s party wrested Siliguri from the Left and retained Bidhannagar, Asansol and Chandernagore, winning nearly 88 per cent of the total wards
Meghdeep Bhattacharyya, Calcutta: A jubilant Mamata Banerjee called for peaceful celebrations after the Trinamul Congress swept the elections to four civic corporations in Bengal.
Her party wrested Siliguri from the Left and retained Bidhannagar, Asansol and Chandernagore, winning nearly 88 per cent of the total wards (198 of the 226 wards where polls were held in the four corporations) in an emphatic show of strength.
Less than two months after a similar show in Calcutta and less than two weeks from the polls to 108 municipalities, Trinamul further consolidated its hold in the four key urban centres of the state with vote shares ranging between 47 and 74 per cent.
“Me and my party are yet again in boundless gratitude to the people…. With every such victory, we are committed to becoming more humble, more gentle, humane, more productive… more helpful. I request everyone to celebrate these victories in peace, without getting trapped in provocation of any sort,” the chief minister said.
Sources in the party said the electoral triumph could not have come at a better time for the party, which is in the process of emerging from an unprecedented internal crisis, precipitated by testy ties between Mamata and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee.
Of the 226 wards in the four bodies where voting was held, the BJP won 12, the Left seven, the Congress five and Independents four.
The BJP suffered a sharp decline in urban centres where it had done well even during the Assembly elections last summer amid a rout across vast swathes of the state.
In Siliguri, where the BJP had leads in 36 wards last summer, it managed only five wins this winter. Its local MLA, Shankar Ghosh, finished third in Ward 24. The party alleged foul play and moved court, seeking cancellation of the polls to the four civic bodies.
The Left found green shoots in the form of its ascent to second place (in terms of vote share) in Bidhannagar and Chandernagore, after achieving it in Calcutta.
The CPM-led combine underscored the “absurdly high” vote shares of Trinamul — for instance, over 90 per cent in four wards each in Bidhannagar and Asansol — to accuse the ruling dispensation of electoral malpractice.
Mamata dismissed the allegations. “Small incidents, one or two, are blown out of proportion every single time. But this time, nothing untoward happened anywhere. The people exercised their franchise in peace in elections that were free and fair,” she said in a telephone interview to ABP Ananda.
“I personally had issued instructions repeatedly. The administration did good work, obeying the state election commission.”
Asked whether the elections would have been truly untainted had not even one incident been reported on February 12, Mamata said: “Nothing significant happened…. I verified.”
While the results of all four civic bodies had been fairly predictable since the Assembly election sweep by Trinamul last year, the extent of its recovery of the ground lost to the BJP in the 2019 general election, especially in places like Bidhannagar, Siliguri and Asansol, was notable.
The Trinamul chief underscored the special significance of the Siliguri victory — on a day she was there. “Not one vote was cast improperly; this was the people’s unadulterated mandate,” she asserted.
“The BJP has been securing victories in the area, in the north Bengal region, for years. But they never did anything for the people. Even the tea gardens that they promised to reopen are yet to be reopened. They have not worked for Darjeeling or Siliguri, not for Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, not for the two Dinajpurs…. All development initiatives in north Bengal were taken by us,” Mamata said, rejoicing at her party’s victory in a corporation that the Left had won even in 2015.
She announced Goutam Deb as mayor for Siliguri, refusing to do so for the other three civic bodies.
Listing her government’s “countless achievements” in terms of development, she iterated that her focus, going forward, was a greener, cleaner environment, industrialisation and employment generation.
The BJP’s state leadership tried to play down the party’s alarming decline, claiming the results would have been much better had the elections not been “vitiated”. But some leaders conceded in private that the party’s loss of vote share by 20-26 per cent from the Assembly elections 10 months ago was cause for alarm.
“This is only going to worsen things for us in the 108 bodies going to the polls on February 27. Even last summer, we had leads in 65. This time we shall be lucky to win even five…. This is precisely why we have moved high court today seeking postponement of the elections,” a BJP state unit insider said.
Dissenting voices from within the saffron camp, like the BJP’s suspended leader Jay Prakash Majumder and veteran Tathagata Roy, demanded explanations.
Political scientists said the BJP’s decline had helped the Left regain some ground although the Trinamul had made the biggest gains from the BJP’s losses.
Asked what she made of the BJP’s decline and early signs of what could be a Left regeneration, Mamata was dismissive, accusing the Left and the Congress of being in cahoots with the BJP.
“Listen, sometimes the BJP transfers its votes to the CPM, at other times, vice versa. Sometimes the Congress transfers its votes to the BJP, at other times, vice versa. A Jawgai-Madhai-Gawdai sort of understanding they have,” she said.
“In the Assembly elections, the CPM transferred its votes to the BJP, the Congress too. They did that in the general election (of 2019) as well. Now, they are unable to handle themselves,” added Mamata.
“In any contest, somebody or the other will be second, third, fourth… somebody or the other will have their deposits forfeited. I am only concerned about our own. We thank the people for our performance. Who comes second, third, fourth, fifth… does not matter.”
