Kolkata: Pollsters will tell you that there are not many ingredients in a bye-election to cook a potboiler. On most occasions, the recipe is known and since bye-elections don’t necessarily lead to a change at the hustings, the dish doesn’t titillate political taste buds. But, things in Bengal could be different.
It is true that bypolls do not change governments, but can have lasting impacts. Moreover, bypoll results serve as indicators to what the ruling dispensation can expect in the coming days when the poll season kicks in. In fact, it reflects the prevalent mood of the voters.
Not much changed during the hay days of the Left Front in Bengal, but as 2011 approached, which eventually proved to be a decisive moment for the state’s political weather; the first indicators for the mandarins at the CPIM headquarters at Kolkata’s Alimuddin Street were the 2009 bye-elections.
The state was quite agitated in the aftermath of the Singur and Nandigram campaigns of Mamata Banerjee, then Railway Minister. Amid the growing uneasiness, bypolls on three Assembly seats, that of Rajganj in north Bengal, Bishnupur-West in South 24 Parganas district (presently non-existent due to a delimitation process) and Belgachia-East seat in Kolkata (now non-existent due to a delimitation process) were held. Though the Reds were holding their Bengal fort, a Trinamool Congress-Congress combine swept the rug from under their feet.
It was a clean sweep against the Left Front. Khageshwar Roy won from Rajganj, creating a history of sorts as he became the first Trinamool Congress MLA from the whole of north Bengal. The Congress had withdrawn its candidate from Bishnupur-West, paving the way for Trinamool nominee Madan Mitra for a one-to-one contest against the CPIM. Madan won.
In Belgachia East, the bypolls had an extra sentimental value for the Left supporters. The seat had fallen vacant due to the death of then state minister and CPIM’s charismatic leader Subhas Chakraborty. The party had fielded the minister’s widow Ramala. Mamata also pulled out a surprise by giving a ticket to Sujit Bose, a once close confidante of Subhas Chakraborty. In an upset of sorts, Ramala was defeated.
Upsets like these keep happening in Bengal, where opposition parties secure victories in bye-elections. During the Assembly by-polls of 2023, the Sagardighi seat in Murshidabad was won by Left supported-Congress candidate Byron Biswas.
Trinamool was defeated hands down. A similar result was seen in the Bhatpara seat in the northern outskirts of Kolkata. The seat went for by-polls in 2019 after Arjun Singh vacated it. Arjun's son Pawan contested on a BJP ticket and defeated Trinamool Congress candidate Madan Mitra.
Since then, Mamata and her Trinamool Congress have not looked back. The party has emerged stronger in this year’s general elections and did a clean sweep on all four seats that went for bypolls in July, winning Raiganj, Ranaghat Dakshin, Bagda and Manicktala. But, the RG Kar rape and murder case had not happened then, and TMC was riding high on its impressive performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Trinamool Congress had registered a 45.77 per cent vote share in the general elections of 2024, up by more than two per cent from the 43.7 per cent votes it bagged in 2019. In terms of seats, the party has 29 in its kitty out of Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats, which is seven more than what it managed to get in 2019. It has practically no reason to get unsettled when the six Assembly seats go to the bypolls on November 13. But, the RG Kar rape and murder case had happened in August this year.
The massive protests, the sheer number of women pouring on the streets and protesting in the cities and towns of Bengal, including Kolkata, all through the months of August and September, the torch light and candle light marches, the fast-unto-death agitations and sit-in demonstrations by doctors, triggered by the rape and murder of a woman medic in the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital had undoubtedly unsettled Trinamool Congress and its supremo, Mamata Banerjee. So much so that several top officials in the state including the Police Commissioner of Kolkata were removed overnight.
In this backdrop, and where ‘threat culture’, nepotism, malpractices in medical institutions and medical education have been laid bare by the agitating junior doctors; this is the first time that the Trinamool Congress is facing any sort of election. The question springing out of this whole episode of protests is, will the RG Kar agitation which has resonated across the state, felt in several cities of India and even overseas, have any effect in this bypolls?
The Trinamool Congress is upbeat about its prospects in the bye-elections. The party knows the protests have subsided now with the junior doctors withdrawing their agitation and even when the protests were at its peak, it did not have a profound effect in the remote villages of Bengal. The rural voters remained unmoved. Whatever reactions were there, were in urban and semi-urban pockets.
Among the six seats that will go for the bypolls, Trinamool won five in the 2021 Assembly elections. Only the Madarihat seat of north Bengal was with the BJP. This time it is a prestige fight for the ruling party in Madarihat because it has never won this Assembly seat. During the Left Front regime, the seat polled in favour of Left constituent RSP. Even after Mamata came to power in 2011, the Left’s winning streak continued till 2016, when the BJP trounced them.
Since then, BJP has been winning this seat and the saffron party has managed comfortable leads from this Assembly segment in the Lok Sabha polls of 2019 and 2024. This time Mamata surely wants to see a 6-0 whitewash and emerge unblemished even after going through the RG Kar protests, which were primarily targeted against her party functionaries and administration.
The INDIA bloc constituents Congress and the Left have fallen apart, deciding to go alone in the bypolls. Trinamool knows that the Left or the Congress has hardly any vote base left in the JungleMahal seats of Taldangra and Medinipur. TMC’s organisational strength in the north Bengal seat of Sitai and Haroa in south Bengal can hardly be questioned. Only in the urban seat of Naihati on the outskirts of Kolkata, the Left might make its presence felt. Hence, the contest, albeit being a four-cornered one; will eventually boil down to a contest between the TMC and the BJP.
Will the RG Kar agitation leave any impact on the voters’ minds when they queue outside the booths on November 13 across six Assembly constituencies and give Trinamool Congress some uneasy moments? Will the latest poll equation between the CPIM and CPI(ML) in Naihati eventually spring up a new electoral pact in Bengal? Will the BJP manage to retain its position as the principal opposition party of the state? The answers should be out by the afternoon of November 23.
