Poll Watch | Talks to form a minority-led front gather pace in Bengal. Should TMC be worried?

At the ground where the mosque is coming up, over a dozen makeshift stalls offer everything from T-shirts to mugs with pictures of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which was demolished by kar sevaks on December 6, 1992. “I love Babri Masjid,” read the message on the T-shirts and mugs. There is an unmistakable air of festivity in the area, where the replica of the long-demolished mosque is being built by suspended Trinamool Congress (TMC) MLA Humayun Kabir.

Kabir has floated his own political outfit called the Janata Unnayan Party (JUP) and aims to field candidates in the coming Assembly elections. He has accused his former party of being anti-minority and has been calling on Muslims in Bengal to unite. As the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls continues to dominate the political agenda in the state, with TMC chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleging that the BJP is using it to disenfranchise voters, there is a churn in the minority community and a push to unite outside the ruling party’s tent.

Soon after Indian Secular Front (ISF) MLA Naushad Siddiqui — the lone non-TMC and non-BJP MLA in the current Assembly — issued a call on January 17 for an alliance against both the TMC and the BJP for the Assembly elections, Kabir said it should be formed at the earliest. The ISF and Naushad are linked to the revered Furfura Sharif shrine in Hooghly district. Sources in both parties said an effort was underway to come together for the elections. It is learnt that apart from the ISF and Kabir’s JUP, other smaller outfits are also involved in talks for a tie-up, including the Kerala-based SDPI, which is the political arm of the banned Popular Front of India.

The JUP has sent proposals to the Left Front and the Congress and is learnt to be awaiting their response. On Monday, Kabir said that if Congress did not get back soon, the proposed alliance would move ahead without it in Malda. There have also been discussions about making attempts to break through in districts where Muslims do not have sizable numbers.

TMC dominance

In a state where Muslims make up 27% of the population as per the 2011 Census, the TMC’s sustained dominance since 2011 has been, to a large extent, the result of the support of women and the minority community.

While there is no empirical evidence to suggest that a formation such as the one the ISF and the JUP are planning to form is going to damage the TMC, it could, at the very least, cause the Mamata Banerjee-led party trouble in certain pockets by dividing the minority vote. So far, the JUP has built its presence in Murshidabad and Malda, while the ISF is based in Bhangar in South 24 Parganas. Both are looking to expand and gain traction in areas where the minority community is present. Districts such as Murshidabad, Malda, and Uttar Dinajpur have a large Muslim population, while a sizable chunk of people from the community live in parts of Birbhum, North 24 Parganas, and South 24 Parganas.

However, upsetting the TMC apple cart is easier said than done. In Murshidabad and Malda that have a total of 34 Assembly seats, the TMC currently holds 28, while the rest are with the BJP. While the TMC’s vote share has risen steadily in Malda from 8% in 2011 to 33.5% in 2016 to 53% in 2021, in Murshidabad, it went up from 6% in 2011 to 31.8% in 2016 to 54% in 2021. In Uttar Dinajpur, the TMC won four constituencies in the 2021 Assembly polls, while the BJP won the other two. One BJP MLA later switched to Trinamool.

What has provided the likes of Kabir and Siddiqui some hope is a degree of unease in the minority community. After protests by the Muslim youth against the removal of 37 groups from the Other Backward Classes (OBC) list, and the reclassification of 34 more minority groups, the West Bengal Commission for Backward Classes notified on January 7 that a fresh survey would be conducted. Sections of Muslims were also unhappy with the TMC government when it fell in line and implemented the amended Waqf law after vowing to stall it.

The return of TMC’s Rajya Sabha MP Mausam Benazir Noor to the Congress has also added to the perception that the TMC may not steamroll its opponents this time in Malda, where Noor’s uncle and late Congress stalwart A B A Ghani Khan Choudhury once wielded massive influence.

However, all this may not be enough to loosen the TMC’s grip on the Muslim vote, something that the BJP will be hoping for, along with a Hindu consolidation, to stand any chance of winning the election. For the minority community, Mamata Banerjee remains the best bet to keep the BJP out of power and the TMC has also been the most vocal on issues such as SIR and the detention of Bengali-speaking migrants in other states. With this, the TMC positioned itself as a benefactor of such workers and given that most of them come from Malda, Murshidabad, and Uttar Dinajpur, the party is likely to reap the benefits in the elections.

But that does not mean the TMC is going to have a free run as far as the minority vote is concerned. If the alternative front with a focus on minorities takes shape, Bengal’s ruling party may have to work hard to keep the upstarts at bay and keep its dominance intact.