In West Bengal, the Congress-left combine campaigned heavily against the TMC’s corruption scandals but failed to take into account that the Bengali voter no longer considers corruption to be a crime but sees it as a survival tool
One of the key factors responsible for the disastrous showing of the left-Congress combine, the increase in the vote share of the BJP, and the re-election of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) for a second term in West Bengal was the Opposition’s failure to correctly read the radical change that the Bengali psyche had undergone in recent years. Bengalis were once proud of fighting all shades of corruption. Sadly today, they do not consider graft to be immoral, provided they get a share of the loot.
Thirty four years of left rule and five years of Mamata Banerjee’s rule has moulded and conditioned the Bengali psyche in such a perverse manner that no form of corruption is considered a vice anymore but a virtue for the sake of self-preservation and self aggrandisement.
So, Opposition leaders were wrong when they hoped that the Narada scam, the Sarada scam and the Kolkata flyover collapse would provoke the conscience of Bengali voters to vote against the TMC.
The Opposition banked heavily on the scams and appealed to the voters to reject the corrupt. But the voters did not give the required response. All five scam-tainted MlAs were re-elected by a huge margin, prompting Chief Minister Banerjee to say that the popular verdict had exonerated the five of all the charges.
The Opposition was not aware that the Bengali value system of yesteryears had already undergone a massive change. In the past, a politician with corruption charges could not last in Bengali politics as he was considered to be a social pariah. Today, he is treated as an asset, provided he shares his ill-gotten wealth.
This self-seeking Bengali mind-set failed to distinguish between the right and the wrong, and played a decisive role in the triumph of the TMC and its subsequent return to power. When the Narada scam surfaced, pro-TMC intellectuals dismissed it as a non-issue and argued that bribe-giving and taking was an essential part of Bengali life. They trivialised the corruption issue and argued that scam-tainted leaders had given more to their electorate than what they had received as bribes.
The Government had given a one-time grant of Rs25,000 to every girl that turned 18 years old to pursue higher education, and this scheme, known as Kanyashree Prakalpa, generated support for the TMC in rural Bengal. Various social interest groups were also targeted with populist freebies and goodies.
This was one of the key reasons why the Sarada and the Narada scams had no effect on Kolkata’s educated middle class, and the TMC made a clean sweep in all the 11 Kolkata seats. In rural Bengal too, the farming community, teetering under the heavy debt burden, voted decisively for the TMC without getting the minimum support price for their produce.
What further motivated voters to support the TMC was the fear that the generous supply of freebies and dole which came as a windfall to them would stop if there was a change of Government. The BJP’s safest seat — Jorasanko, where a flyover had collapsed killing 27 people — went to the TMC because of this.
But it was the sizeable support of 27 per cent of the Muslim votes in 132 seats for the TMC that clinched Banerjee’s victory. “Whichever party we vote for will come to power. State’s Muslim minority will decide the political fate of the majority community”, said one of the State’s respected clergies. The clergies had openly exhorted the Muslims to give the BJP a decent burial in the State. Despite the Congress-left alliance calling itself a secular front, the Muslim clerics labeled it as anti-Muslim.
What has buoyed up the morale of the State BJP is that it has now raised its 2011 Assembly vote share of four per cent to 11 per cent. Although it could not retain the 17 per cent vote share of the last lok Sabha poll, it did not allow any significant transfer of votes to the alliance because of extensive social networking done by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, especially among the tribals. Majority of the left and Congress voters, who in 2014 had voted for the BJP, did not do ghar wapsi because of their disapproval of the alliance.
Also, the formation of the left-Congress alliance came so late that leaders of both the parties hardly got time to reach out to the people, to project it as a viable alternative to the TMC. Had there been no alliance, both the seat and vote share of the two parties would have come down drastically.
The post-poll violence that the TMC has unleashed on the alliance, specially the Communist Party of India(Marxist) leaders and supporters, has brought both the partners closer, forcing them to speak in one voice. What will be keenly watched is whether the alliance will give the BJP more Opposition space for it to emerge as an alternative to the TMC.
(The writer is a political commentator based in Kolkata)