Bold TC has Left on the defensive

No matter what politicians on either side claim, it has not been a one-sided affair. But Mamata Banerjee is holding the CPI(M) responsible for the bloody campaign trail. The Marxists blame the BJP-TC combine for trying to create “panic and chaos” on the eve of the elections. Such unprecedented violence indicates significant changes in the political contours of rural Bengal. For the first time in the last 21 years, the Marxists have facedsuch an aggressive challenge in their strongest bastion. The clashes were a fallout of this challenge. Mamata harps on the point that the most important gain, even at the cost of so many lives, was to free the villages from fear.

For the Marxists, the bitter campaign was a direct fallout of the last Lok Sabha polls, which threw up the TC-BJP alliance as an enemy, different from the Congress. The new enemy, unlike the Congress, is not interested in simply surviving; relentless offensive is its raison d’etre. Mamata has not known any other brand of politics.

The Marxists have been unnerved because they thought it was their exclusive brand. The BJP-led government at the Centre has emboldened the TC-BJP offensive, the way no Congress Government in New Delhi spurred the Congress campaign against the Left.

It is not that the Congress had no rural base. In the last panchayat elections, the party secured over 14,000 seats against the Left Front’s 46,000, while the BJP got 2,300. But the Lok Sabha poll resultshave altered the scene.

Mamata this time, is sure to take away most of the Congress votes that still went to the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections. The BJP too is sure to further consolidate its strength, driving to the hilt the advantage of the government in New Delhi. The Left suffered a negative swing of two per cent in the Lok Sabha polls. The villages, which did not quite follow the swing in urban areas, may now be touched by the winds of change.