A smile,a handshake,kind words in the run-up to crucial assembly elections in West Bengal and with the Left Front in a corner after three decades of uninterrupted reign,Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is speaking a new language. Its perhaps ironic that the last time he spoke a new language,after the Lefts seventh straight win in the 2006 assembly elections,that he would bring industry back to Bengal,he didnt quite prepare his party or cadres for it. Then,in its bid to play catch-up on industrialisation,the Left,and especially its powerful leaders at Writers and in the districts,forgot to connect with the masses on an issue as emotive as land. After the Nandigram and Singur agitations,Bhattacharjee was forced to change his stance on industry,and since 2009 the state administration has been in limbo.
Its only closer to the elections that the Left has again spoken forth on the need to woo industry,always with the rider that agriculture will not be allowed to suffer. Anyone who knows Bengals land equation knows that with only 1 per cent of the state fallow,it will be impossible not to use some agricultural land for industry,but the equation is not being laid out right now.
In fact,he held a press conference in March to explain the Lefts gameplan,soon after Banerjee released a refreshing Trinamool manifesto. Usually,he doesnt hold press conferences and even at events he chairs,he hardly ever answers questions posed to him. In fact,just last June,after the Lefts Kolkata civic poll defeat,he refused to take any questions on the polls,storming out of the state secretariat in a huff. Prior to that in June 2009,after the cyclonic storm Aila which severely affected South 24 Parganas and the Sunderbans,the chief minister lost his cool at least twice.
Now,however,Bhattacharjee appears more amiable in his interactions,with all his barbs targeted at Banerjee. In January,he addressed Singur farmers for the first time since the Tatas left in 2008. Even at the peak of the Singur agitation,with Banerjee camping right outside the project site,Bhattacharjee stayed away. In the initial days of the Singur agitation,he had refused to take the Trinamool seriously,saying they had too few seats to matter. In 2006,Bhattacharjee could perhaps afford to be complacent. The Trinamool Congress had barely 30-odd seats in the 294-seat assembly,but the 2008 panchayat polls and the 2009 general elections changed all that.
The electoral decline of the Left started with the 2008 panchayat polls which came on the back of the Singur and Nandigram agitations. It not only fared badly in the Lok Sabha elections,but also lost the Kolkata municipal polls and nine out of ten bypolls held last year. For Bhattacharjee,this election is crucial because in the parliamentary elections the CPMs lead in the Jadavpur assembly segment was merely 19,000. This,when Bhattacharjee had won the 2006 elections,defeating the
Trinamools Dipak Ghosh,a retired IAS officer,by over 50,000 votes. In the civic polls too,the CPM lagged behind the Trinamool in six of 10 wards.
An intellectual he is poet Sukantas nephew and likes his Kafka and Pamuk Bhattacharjee is not known to suffer fools,and his Left Front partners complain that he is not particularly communicative. Indeed,he failed to carry along even the LF in his industrialisation drive,though that was the right thing to do. At a Brigade Ground rally this February,which the Trinamool dubbed the Lefts farewell speech,Bhattacharjee steered clear of controversial issues,and focused on women,Muslims,teachers and students. We want factories,but not at the cost of agitation, he told the rally. This was a far cry from his 2006 slogan krishi amader bhitti,shilpo amader bhobisyot (our base is agriculture,industry our future). In the manifesto too,the CPM has admitted lapses in its rectification drive,and at various public meetings Bhattacharjee has apologised on behalf of haughty party leaders.
Bengal isnt used to its leaders apologising for anything lack of infrastructure,poor healthcare,growing unemployment,forced land acquisition. But now that one of them is doing so,could it be a case of too little too late?
The writer is a senior editor,The Financial Express
