After Shiv Sena’s Uddhav Thackeray openly admitted to The Indian Express—breaking the NDA’s post-poll silence—that the Gujarat factor was one reason behind the party’s rout, now another BJP ally, the Trinamool Congress, has echoed this line.Its argument: the Gujarat riots and the Trinamool’s ambivalent stand led to a ‘‘total rejection’’ by Muslim voters across the state.First to raise his voice is Sultan Ahmed, one of Trinamool’s front-ranking minority leaders trounced in Katwa. Speaking to The Indian Express, he said: ‘‘Muslims turned their backs on the Trinamool Congress this election. The party’s alliance with the NDA even after what happened in Gujarat could be one of the reasons.’’He said the swing away from Trinamool by Muslim voters was more pronounced in the urban areas but in rural constituencies, too, the phenomenon was also ‘‘visible and pervasive.’’His senior colleague Sougata Roy is more strong in his attack after his stunning defeat in Diamond Harbour. ‘‘Muslims were massacred in Gujarat and I had to face the aftermath in Diamond Harbour,’’ said Roy. Several Assembly segments in the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha seat have a high concentration of Muslim voters.Mamata Banerjee, herself, has been unusually silent this time. After the 2001 Assembly polls, she had some comfort: with 60 seats in the Assembly, she was the main Opposition party. But this time with just one MP, herself, she is groping for answers.But she, too, admits that the Gujarat riots played a role. She isn’t willing to take the blame—she had dithered during the violence and had congratulated Modi on his election victory—but puts it at the CPM’s door. ‘‘The CPM downloaded clippings of the Gujarat riots from the Internet and compiled these into CDs. These were later shown in minority pockets and a sustained camapign was carried out on Gujarat,’’ she said. ‘‘It did have an impact on the minority electorate.’’But numbers tell the story:• Mohammad Salim (CPM) defeated Trinamool’s Ajit Panja by 71,000 votes in 2004, a seat he had lost by over 41,000 votes in 1999. Several Assembly segments in his seat, Entally, Vidyasagar, Manicktala and Beliaghata, have heavy concentration of Muslim voters who overwhelmingly voted for Salim taking his share up to over 50% from a mere 38.5% in 1999.• In Calcutta North West, there is a high percentage of Muslim voters and the CPM wrested the seat for the first time after 1958.• One of the most powerful Trinamool candidates, Kolkata Mayor, Subrata Mukherjee lost to CPM whose voteshare went up from 25.4% in 1999 to 42% this time.According to preliminary estimates, the Trinamool’s vote share in Kolkata has gone down sharply from 45% in 1999 to 37% this time. The Muslim vote in Kolkata is estimated to be close to 30%. ‘‘The downslide is alarming,’’ said the party’s Sultan Ahmed, ‘‘Gujarat has certainly been a factor, we now realize.’’
