HOWRAH CLASHES, SAGARDIGHI A PRECURSOR TO PANCHAYAT POLLS?

When we deliberate on the recent clashes in West Bengal over Ramnavami, we need to discuss at length on the recent Sagardighi bypoll this year and the forthcoming blockbuster Panchayat polls. The Sagardighi bypoll was necessitated following the death of the sitting Trinamool MLA, Subrata Saha, who had won the seat by defeating his BJP rival by 50,206 votes in 2021. However, in 2023 the Sagardighi poll results astounded one and all and even the hardcore political analysts were stunned. In a political surprise, Congress candidate Bairon Biswas, backed by the Left, had won the Sagardighi Assembly bypoll in 2023 by a margin of 22,986 votes on Thursday, defeating Trinamool’s Debasish Banerjee in a constituency that has around 65 per cent minority population and whose support contributed to the ruling party’s stellar performance in the 2021 Assembly elections!

While Bairon became the “Lord of Polls”, his win also ensured Congress’ representation in the Bengal Assembly, as the party had failed to win a seat in the 2021 assembly polls… and mind you, the bypoll result has relegated the BJP to a distant third. Though this episode was mentioned in national media, the poll mechanics behind this new script was not quite elaborated in the national media. For the Trinamool, this sort of a bypoll result being announced just before the highprofile panchayat polls is reason enough to worry Nabanna as minorities still form the core support base of TMC. Congress’ Adhir Chowdhury claimed that Sagardighi’s outcome proved the disenchantment of Muslims with Mamata and that she was not invincible. And now with the Ramnavami clashes in Howrah, the ruling TMC has stepped up its outreach towards the Muslim understandably following the Sagardighi bypoll outcome. And as it happens in Indian politics, soon after the clashes both parties traded several charges over the violence. While the TMC blamed the BJP for provocation to serve its political agenda, the BJP accused the state government of “selective (anti-Hindu) bias” in handling the intense situation. “They (BJP leaders) have hired goons from outside the state to orchestrate communal riots. Nobody has stopped their processions, but they do not have the right to march with swords and bulldozers. How did they get the audacity to do this in Howrah?” Mamata said, adding that routes had been changed “to particularly target and attack one community”. Meanwhile, the West Bengal administration is also a worried lot following the clashes. Howrah had seen similar clashes on Ramnavami last year. However, a day before the festival, the CM had warned that any type of communal incitement in the name of ‘Ramnavami’ would not be tolerated.

Following the Sagardighi episode, TMC is wary of the fact that minority votes may be slipping away from its grip. In the past, during so many elections, though it was seen that the TMC had gained seats in all minority areas where traditionally the CPI(M) and Congress were strong, a slip in the minority vote will certainly hit the TMC fortunes. Following the loss in the minority-dominated Sagardighi bypoll – a seat TMC had held for years – Mamata has immediately shuffled the key Muslim leadership in the party and announced a separate development board for minorities. For the ruling party, the most concerning takeaway from the byelection was the fall in its vote share from 50.95 per cent in the 2021 Assembly polls to 34.94 per cent. That the vote share plummeted in an Assembly seat with almost 63 per cent of Muslims indicates that a major chunk of the minority community’s votes went against it. Following last year’s violence, the CPI(M) had held a peace rally in Howrah, but while local TMC leaders had visited, the senior leadership stayed away. Meanwhile, both the CPI(M) and BJP have accused the ruling party of bias after the West Bengal BJP chief, Sukanta Majumdar, was stopped from meeting victims of Shibpur violence in Howrah on Sunday. “The CM is working not for all but for only people of one religion,” he said. CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty said, “Either the violence was an intelligence failure, or the TMC and BJP are in this together to communally polarise society… But we will fight it and will not allow communal politics in Bengal.”

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

ROBIN ROY  The writer is Senior Journalist and former Managing Editor, First India