Mahajolt for Mamata

The Bharatiya Janata Party, which surprised then with its show of increased electoral influence and was confident of continuing its march towards relevance in the Marxist bastion, has come a cropper with a mere 30 municipal seats across a few local bodies. The significance of civic polls may be strictly limited elsewhere, but can hardly be underestimated in a state where the Left Front’s power comes from its base in the local government. The municipal electorate has clearly served on the Trinamool leader and the Man from Malda a notice on the Mahajot’s untenability.

The CPM and its Front have hastened to hail the electoral verdict as an unambiguous rejection of the idea of the "unholy alliance". The would-be partners of the Mahajot may bristle at the moral censure from the Left but they would do well indeed to recognise the disapproving popular response to the proposal of a Trinamool-Congress-BJP pact.

The alliance has appeared less unholy than absurd. Election after election, in state after state, the people’s mandate has been for a political polarisation, the kind that has apparently come to stay as well as at the Centre despite the feeble attempt in some quarters to see in the reunion of former prime ministers hope for a third Front’s revival. Slender is the chance of success for any political initiative that ignores the polarisation.

Mamata Banerjee has made her choice at the national level. She must make one in her state. She may not meed now to go on an unofficial strike as the Railway Minister to press for better behaviour by the state BJP as an electoral partner. The Trinamool Congress, however, may have to show greater tolerance of the viewpoint of those in the West Bengal Congress with reservations about the Mahajot despite Mamata Banerjee’s peeved immediate response to the political point-scoring by Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi and Ajit Jogi.

The proclaimed resolve of Jyoti Basu to retire from electoral politics may not by itself spell an end to the monopoly of power enjoyed by the Marxist-led Front in the state. The acknowledged vote-catcher of the West Bengal opposition, to go by all indications thus far, including the municipal poll results, can combat the Marxists more effectively as a leader of a more credible alliance than the Mahajot.