Why a Diwali meeting has TMC rattled: BJP visitors, a CPM veteran & panchayat poll calculus

As the contest between the TMC and the BJP is much closer in north Bengal than in the rest of the state, some political observers believe that a leader of Bhattacharya’s stature can disrupt the ruling party’s plans. The BJP swept the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in north Bengal, winning seven of the eight Lok Sabha seats in the region. The other seat went to the Congress. Though the BJP’s performance in the Assembly elections last year was not as well as it would have hoped for, it still bagged 30 of the 54 seats in the eight north Bengal districts. The TMC won 23 constituencies while the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (Tamang) secured one seat. The ruling party managed to pull things back in the civic body polls held this March. It won 102 of 108 municipalities across the state and in north Bengal, it lost only the Darjeeling Municipality elections to the Humro Party.

In the three-tier panchayat polls, Opposition parties often come together to form an alliance at the grassroots to defeat the ruling dispensation, notwithstanding the party line at the national and state levels. Local leaders often adopt their own strategies to form boards in Gram Panchayats, Panchayat Samitis, and Zilla Parishads.

This is where, the TMC believes, Bhattacharya comes in. A five-time MLA, he was the minister for urban development and municipal affairs in the Left Front government. He is soft-spoken and politically astute and still wields influence in the region despite the downturn in his party’s electoral fortunes and also his own.

“There is a conspiracy going on to destabilise the government, especially in the northern part of the state. It may be noted that BJP leaders have been demanding a separate state for the people in north Bengal,” TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said on Tuesday, referring to the demand raised by several BJP leaders for a separate state or Union Territory for the people of north Bengal. They allege that the Mamata Banerjee government has deprived the region despite being in power for over a decade, but central BJP leaders have not yet reciprocated the sentiment.

Bista hit back, saying in a tweet, “Under TMC common courtesy and basic decency has become so rare in our state, that TMC operatives are raising questions on my meeting with the former WB State Minister, Siliguri MLA and SMC Mayor Sh Ashok Bhattacharya ji yesterday, whom I had called on to share Diwali greetings.”

Siliguri model

Ashok Bhattacharya started his political career as a councillor at Siliguri Municipal Corporation. He became the chairperson of Siliguri Municipality in 1987 and remained in the position till 1991. The same year, he was elected to the West Bengal Assembly from Siliguri for the first time. He retained the constituency in 1996, 2001, and 2006.

In 1996, he became the minister for urban development and municipal affairs in the Left Front government under Chief Minister Jyoti Basu. Bhattacharya continued in the Cabinet under Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who succeeded Basu, till 2011 when the Left Front government was voted out of power. He lost to the TMC’s Rudra Nath Bhattacharya in 2011, but he landed a counterpunch four years later when he stitched together an alliance with the Congress for the Siliguri Municipal Corporation elections. The alliance successfully defeated the TMC and helped him become the mayor of Siliguri. The following year, in 2016, he again surprised everyone by winning the Siliguri Assembly seat in a contest against former Indian footballer Bhaichung Bhutia.