Mamata Banerjee is wary of the erosion in the voter base of the CPI(M) as the beneficiary is not her party, but the BJP

West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress has been subjected to unusual levels of pressure in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scheme scam. The party argues that the pressure is being mounted on it by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to ensure a split ahead of next year’s Assembly election. While the argument is debatable, it is difficult to understand why political heads are not rolling in States that have witnessed much bigger financial scams in northern India. Although political leaders allegedly benefited from the Rs.49,000 crore Pearl Agrotech scam in Punjab, a major ponzi scheme, unlike in West Bengal, no politician was detained there.

Within the Trinamool many believe that if their chairperson had embraced neo-liberal economic policies, the Saradha scam probe would have been called off a long time ago. Financial scams are often blown out of proportion — not necessarily to punish tainted leaders, but to rock a party’s boat for electoral gain. Many of the Trinamool leaders also believe that some token resistance to central ordinances and clever support to the Modi government’s neo-liberal policies in Parliament could have kept financial scams out of the State.

Explaining the current situation, Trinamool chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee says, “If I protect those whose interests are already protected [I] will be worshipped. But I’m pro-poor.” Her “pro-poor” strategy decimated the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which had ruled the State for 34 years, but annoyed “big capital.” Soon after Ms Banerjee’s 2011 electoral victory, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited West Bengal and said the U.S. “desires to open” multi-brand retail market in India. Ms Banerjee ignored the message. More recently, prior to U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit, a senior U.S.-India policy studies expert Richard Rossow said that “a lot of negatives than positives” are being heard about Bengal due to Ms Banerjee’s opposition to neo-liberal policies, including opposition to FDI in retail.

Compulsions



For Ms Banerjee, it is her electorate and not her ideology which prevents her from placing Wal-Mart’s interest over that of neighbourhood ‘mom-and-pop’ stores, as nearly one-tenth of the State’s population survives by running grocery shops. West Bengal’s population is another factor. The State is less than half the size of industrially developed Gujarat, with 30 million more people added to its population. It has the second highest population density and a policy of distributing land, which has created multiple stakeholders. So, Ms Banerjee is “pro-poor” by default, with no leeway to provide market access to “big capital.”

Confusion



But her bigger worry is neither “big capital” nor the poor peasant, but a political party that has devoured her energy over the last two decades: the CPI(M).

“The Chief Minister will need to plug the drain of funds and rise in collective arrogance in Trinamool if she wants to continue to hold power in the State ”

For the most part of her political career, Ms Banerjee has invested her efforts in reducing the political hold of the CPI(M) over the State. However, ironically, only three years after assuming power, she is trying to prop up the Communists in order to block the rise of the BJP in the State. In Bengal politics, it can now be conclusively established that the Right is fast eating into the Left’s base, creating nightmares for the Trinamool. She is worried about the erosion of the CPI(M) voter base, and the BJP gaining from it, as was recently evident in the Bongaon by-election where traditional CPI(M) votes went to the BJP.

Many reasons have been cited to explain the BJP’s expansion, of which the most credible one was elucidated by Majid Master of North 24 Paraganas and his men. Mr. Master is no average leader of the CPI(M). He controlled the lucrative business of auctioning fish ponds in vested land in parts of the district, generating huge funds for his party. Trinamool threatened and pushed him and his comrades out of their fiefdom and took over the business. Many of Mr. Master’s comrades, who conducted election campaigns for the Left for decades, eventually joined the BJP in order to survive.

After many years, Mr. Master is back in his village and his pupils are planning to regroup under him, creating an ideal catch-22 situation for the Trinamool — if CPI(M) cadres are beaten up, they join the BJP, and if they don’t, they regroup under their leaders, creating a bigger crisis for the Trinamool. This is the key concern for Ms. Banerjee .

The other headache for her is corruption, which is targeting even party workers. Sougat Ali, a Trinamool worker in Chhota Jagulia Panchayat of North 24 Paraganas district, was asked to cough up Rs.30,000 by the party’s local satraps. Ali had to sell the lands he possessed in order to survive. Such examples illustrate how the party is now in the business of extortion. And interestingly, Trinamool cadres are blackmailing their own party coworkers and forcing them to contribute money.

Moreover, Trinamool has shunted out its whistleblowers. The President of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education Chaitali Dutta, a prominent activist in Ms Banerjee’s anti-land acquisition movement, lost her job for questioning the supply racket of school text books, soon after Trinamool came to power.

In a recent discussion in Kolkata’s Muslim Institute, many Urdu-speaking scholars questioned the Chief Minister’s policy to woo the minorities. “Why subsidise Muezzins [prayer callers] when no one asked for it?” or “Why did she repeat ‘Insha’Allah’ in between Bengali words while covering her head?” While about 10 per cent of Bengal’s Muslims speak Urdu and their views can be arguably ignored, the opinions of Bengali Muslims are hardly any different.

Ms Banerjee conspicuously aligned herself with the minorities after the 2011 victory, prompting a quick consolidation of majority votes, resulting in the BJP’s growth. Eventually, the Trinamool lost the Assembly by-election in Basirhat-South, with substantial minority votes, in September. Ms Banerjee immediately stopped mixing Arabic with Bengali.

The State government has been commended in a few areas such as educating the girl child, facilitating health care services or initiatives to boost employment by funding agencies and the Union government. Villagers in districts in north and south Bengal almost unequivocally told The Hindu that the road conditions in the State have improved in remote areas, but in the same breath they also said that arrogance and corruption among the ruling class has multiplied over the last three years.

Ms Banerjee will need to plug the drain of funds, rise in collective arrogance and the erosion in the CPI(M)’s vote share benefitting the BJP, if she wants to continue to hold power in the State. It might seem like a tall order, but she is always believed to perform better under pressure.

suvojit.bagchi@thehindu.co.in