Hyderabad: History has been repeating itself and every time she has successfully withstood obstacles and made a comeback. That she will never leave an inch to her rivals without a fight, is known to all.
Today's clean sweep by the Trinamool Congress in the Assembly by-polls of Kharagpur Sadar in Paschim Medinipur, Karimpur in Nadia and Kaliaganj in Uttar Dinajpur only manifests her political acumen. The results will surely provide the much-needed oxygen to Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee ahead of the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections. It will also act as a boost for the party before the civic polls across the state scheduled next year.
The results have also rendered a big blow to the surging BJP, which turned many eyeballs with a spectacular show of bagging 18 seats in the general elections held earlier this year.
The downtime for Mamata had started around two years back when she and her party were accused of strongarm tactics and manipulation while holding the Panchayat polls in West Bengal. A huge chunk of seats in the three-tier rural polls went in the kitty of the ruling Trinamool Congress, uncontested. There were also reports of widespread violence and intimidation. Then came the Lok Sabha polls. Trinamool Congress was virtually routed from the entire North Bengal and had made serious dents in many South Bengal seats, which was Mamata's impregnable forte.
Signs were ripe about an impending saffron surge across Bengal and much was at stake for Mamata.
Only the Karimpur Assembly seat was with the TMC when voters queued outside the polling booths on November 25. The Kharagpur Sadar seat was won by BJP state president Dilip Ghosh and the Kaliaganj seat was never with the Trinamool Congress.
Mamata's first challenge was to retain Karimpur seat and then to decrease the margin with BJP in the other two seats. If she was successful in the later, then she would be eyeing to trounce BJP in both seats. Mamata had her pieces in place, with ample backup from poll strategist Prashant Kishore.
The results today showed that Mamata Banerjee did have the last laugh.
Karimpur Assembly seat was a Left bastion since the mid-1970s till 2016. CPI(M) had been winning the seat all through. The stint did not break even in 2011, when the Left Front was defeated by Trinamool Congress and Mamata Banerjee was voted to the hustings. In 2016, TMC's Mahua Moitra first registered a win from the seat by around 16,000 votes. Though the Assembly segment had given lead to TMC, yet BJP had tasted a leap of around 50,000 votes in their favour from the seat during the last Lok Sabha polls.
Now, they had Karimpur in their sight and Mukul Roy, the party's strategist was leaving no stones unturned. He had toured the nook and corners of the Assembly segment with party candidate Jayprakash Majumdar. A section of political watchers had also thought that the mid-morning heckling of Majumdar on poll day, could have a sympathy factor in favour of BJP down the line. But, TMC candidate Bimalendu Singha Roy was the man of the day from the seat. Mamata had ticked the first box.
Second, in line was the Kaliaganj seat in Uttar Dinajpur. Though a stronghold of the Congress since Independence and the backyard of Congress leader Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, the 'hand' was gradually losing its hold in the seat. The CPI(M) had also won the seat a couple of times, but it always remained synonymous with Priya'da. The last Panchayat polls was decisive for the saffron party, which bagged nine of ten panchayats spread across the Assembly segment. And then came the issue of NRC.
With around 20 per cent minority voters among the around two lakh strong voting population of Kaliaganj, the Citizenship Amendment Bill and BJP's push for NRC had turned out to be a major poll issue in the Indo-Bangla border Assembly seat. The result, Trinamool Congress won the seat for the first time. Mamata had ticked the second box.
The Kharagpur Sadar Assembly seat in Paschim Medinipur was always a prestige fight for both Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and state BJP president Dilip Ghosh, who had won the last Lok Sabha polls and the by-election was taking place to fill the seat vacated by him.
Being an essentially Railway town, Kharagpur Sadar always had a sizeable non-Bengali population and be it Narayan Chowbey of the CPI and Gyan Singh Sohanpal of the Congress, the seat had always witnessed non-Bengali candidates being the chosen one, till 2016, when Dilip Ghosh won from the seat in 2016. Trinamool Congress had never tasted victory from the seat. Here Mamata had fielded her trusted lieutenant Subhendu Adhikari to counter Ghosh's poll strategy this time.
The entire area of Kharagpur Sadar seat comes under the Kharagpur municipality area and Trinamool is in power in the civic body. It was a foregone conclusion that civic issues would dominate the campaign and it did. Allegations and counter-allegations flew thick and thin, but on result day it was TMC. Mamata had ticked the third and final box in style.
"This is a victory of the people. This is a victory for development. Politics of arrogance will not work. People have rejected BJP. Ek, dui, teen... BJP ke biday din (One, two, three... throw away BJP). Minorities, Adivasis, Rajbanshi - everyone has voted for us,” Mamata said in a message.
The Left Front-Congress alliance had made no difference in the bypolls. The saffron surge had halted in Bengal. The opposition's claim of widespread violence in polls of West Bengal had not cut much ice in the relatively peaceful Assembly bye-elections. And Prashant Kishore's strategy has passed its first litmus test.
Mamata's latest slogan after the bypoll results -- “Banglar paap, BJP saaf” (Bengal's sin BJP has been washed off) will surely resonate among her bolstered party workers till they face next year's civic polls. Will BJP churn out something new to check this downturn? Will the Left Front-Congress alliance continue? Only time will tell.
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