Is it a good time to have elections in Bengal?

November 22, 2014 10:37 am | Updated 10:37 am IST - Kolkata

After the arrest of Srinjoy Bose, Trinamool Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP and perhaps the richest newspaper editor of Eastern India , the BJP demanded the Chief Minister’s resignation.

The party’s observer in the State Siddharth Nath Singh said that the Chief Minister “should start writing her resignation letter” as the arrested MP is “one of her closest associates”.

Fresh elections may actually help Trinamool Congress in many ways. Firstly, it is now an established fact that Ms Banerjee is in her best when she is out of power. If push comes to shove, she may resign and go to electors accusing the BJP for toppling her democratically elected government as she was resisting communal politics in the State.

The BJP, with all its money power, cannot counter it in the summer of 2015 because it is not organizationally equipped to counter Trinamool Congress in the rural areas. In fact, the BJP will not even be in a position to put up five persons in every polling station in the next six months. But they may if the election is conducted in 2016.

Secondly, the BJP does not have a representative face in the State who can counter the might and myth of Mamata Banerjee in rural Bengal.

A sizeable section within the Bengal BJP is extremely unsure if State president Rahul Sinha is the right Chief Ministerial candidate to project for the 2016 elections. Much would depend on finding the “right Bengali face” as the party is still considered as a “non-Bengali” party.

The leadership is also not sure about the person with the right mix of affability and acceptability who could be Bengal’s ‘Narendra Modi’ for the BJP. It is nearly impossible to find such a person if the election happens in six months time.

No Saradha effect Thirdly, the results of last Lok Sabha election do not establish that the billion dollar Saradha scam has affected Trinamool Congress in any way. The party scored well in rural pockets where electors invested liberally in Ponzi schemes. The people perhaps are aware that Bengal’s only large-scale legitimate ‘industry’ is Chit Fund.

Absence of small investment due to decreasing rate of interest in public investment policies compounded with lack of small investment opportunity has pushed rural Bengal to invest 10 rupees a day in Chit Fund companies.

The companies were also returning on investment religiously over the last few decades. Just that they all went bankrupt following the Saradha scam when everyone withdrew their share and hundreds of companies went bust.

Connecting this complex phenomenon with electoral politics is possible if a party has an organisation at the grassroots, which the BJP does not have as of now. So, BJP needs to rein in their leaders while demanding the resignation of Ms Banerjee and let the elections arrive in due course.

The BJP will have a clear advantage if Ms Banerjee seeks public mandate a year before time — the state machinery will be independent without any party in power.

The Election Commission may also not listen to too many requests of the Trinamool Congress, the way it heard in the last elections.

Minority factor Six months would be good time for the BJP to initiate a political process so that more and more parties with sizeable minority votes set up shop in Bengal. They will clearly not win but damage Trinamool’s minority base badly.

If 20-30 per cent of Trinamool’s minority votes, in certain pockets, reduce then the party’s seat share will fall by 50-60 per cent .

It would help BJP only as the party is slowly consolidating in many areas where minority vote is a factor. And, minority votes are a factor in about 40 per cent developmental blocks of Bengal.

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