On June 23, heads of 15 Opposition parties assembled in Patna to discuss a strategy to defeat Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. These parties all agree that PM Modi and BJP are “anti-democratic” and have to be defeated in the 2024 polls to protect democracy and the soul of the Constitution. Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who herself was one of the attendees of the meeting, even said that “if BJP wins in 2024, India will exist no more and there will be no more elections.”
Attacks on Opposition for Daring to contest elections in Bengal
This statement of Mamata Banerjee comes at a time when, in her own ruled state, there have been countless incidents of attacks on Opposition candidates of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), BJP, Congress and Indian Secular Front for contesting in the rural body polls, which are to be held on July 8.
On the last day of filing nominations, when CPM and Congress workers and supporters were on their way to submit nominations in Chopra block of North Dinajpur, a young CPM activist, Mansur Alam, associated with the party’s youth wing — Democratic Youth Federation of India — died after he was hit by a bullet fired by miscreants, allegedly belonging to the TMC. Importantly, the ruling TMC has won uncontested all 217 seats of Gram Panchayat and all 24 seats of Panchayat Samiti in this block. It also won uncontested all three Zila Parishad seats falling under the Chopra Panchayat Samiti.
Obviously, this can’t be denied that the organisation of the Opposition isn’t at par with the TMC across the state but it is also true that there were intimidations and attacks on Opposition workers and supporters to prevent them from filing nominations — the developments of Chopra block are a prominent example of this.
Continuous process to weaken Opposition
According to the TMC, the Panchayat elections have always been marred by violence — and it blames the previous CPM-led Left Front rule for this. It is true that the most number of people — 76 — died in the 2003 Panchayat elections and in Murshidabad, which was then a Congress stronghold, 45 people were killed in the violence. Ironically, it was the then-ruling party, CPM, which suffered the maximum casualties at 31. Five years later, this number dropped to 30 but then in 2013, the first panchayat elections under the TMC rule, the number rose to 39 and dropped to 30 in 2018.
In terms of winning uncontested seats, the then-ruling Left Front won 11 percent in 2003 and this number dropped to 5 percent in 2008. However, after the TMC came to power, this percentage rose. The ruling TMC won 11 percent seats uncontested in 2013 and then in 2018, the number went to an all-time high — with TMC winning 34 percent seats uncontested. This time, it dropped with the TMC winning 12 percent uncontested. Still, these numbers are higher than that of the Left rule.
Also importantly, during Left rule, the Opposition parties had their strongholds still. Murshidabad and Malda — and also North Dinajpur — were mostly known as Congress strongholds. On the other hand, TMC remained a strong force in Kolkata and its neighbouring urban areas. However, since the TMC came to power, there have been attempts to weaken the Opposition by luring their elected members — including MLAs, corporators, Zila Parishad members and Panchayat members — to join the ruling party. The Left Front had several times alleged that its members were lured through money by the ruling party leaders. Not to forget that since 2011, many Opposition MLAs joined TMC without even resigning from their seats, while maintaining in the state assembly that they belong to the party on whose symbol they were elected. The speaker of the assembly didn’t even disqualify those MLAs in the last 13 years, despite the fact these defections fell under the disqualification law. This hasn’t happened in the past in the state on such a large scale. This was to systematically weaken the Opposition so that no political force could challenge the dominance of the TMC, which expanded its empire across the state.
A Pliant State Election Commission?
Former state secretary Rajiv Sinha was appointed the State Election Commissioner and within 24 hours, without even holding an all-party meeting at the block, district or state level, he announced the Panchayat elections for around 73,000 seats and said that the polls would be held in a single phase. What a joke of democracy! No wonder the main Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari alleged that the commission is working at the behest of TMC — this same allegation is repeated by CPM and the Congress too.
The Calcutta High Court too was forced to pull up the Election Commissioner and even remarked that he could resign from his post if he was unable to conduct his role properly. This remark came days after the Election Commission went to the Supreme Court challenging the Calcutta High Court’s order for the deployment of central forces, although the apex court also upheld the order of the high court, dealing a blow to the narrative of the TMC that the law and order of the state is “absolutely fine”.
Doesn’t this remark from the high court point towards the State Election Commission, a constitutional body, becoming pliant? What does it say about the status of democracy in the state? Let’s not forget that in 2013, the then State Election Commissioner Mira Pande even went to the Supreme Court against the Mamata Banerjee government, to deploy central forces in the Panchayat elections, only to ensure that voters were able to exercise their voting rights as enshrined by the Constitution of the country. But this time, the commission did the opposite. Remember, there were no central forces in the 2018 Panchayat elections and we all know how democracy was brutally attacked then.
Disturbing silence from the Opposition leaders
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who is always busy attacking Modi for weakening democracy in the country, is silent on West Bengal — despite the fact that his party leaders and supporters too have been facing attacks just for contesting elections! Phoolchand Sheikh, a Congress worker from Murshidabad, was killed on the first day of filing nominations. But the national leadership of the grand old party is silent as support of the TMC is needed to defeat the BJP. Such are the priorities. The same goes for the CPM. Although the party’s general secretary Sitaram Yechury attacked the TMC for its tactics to prevent the Opposition from contesting elections, he too doesn’t have problems with the TMC joining the anti-BJP front nationally. Bihar Chief Minister and JDU supremo, Nitish Kumar, aspiring to play the role of legendary socialist leader Jay Prakash Narayan, who led the Opposition against authoritarian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, is also completely silent on the situation of Bengal.
This shows that this Opposition unity — with many leaders setting their eyes only on the chair of the prime minister — is all about capturing power and the principles of the Constitution don’t matter to them in that way as they often claim. If the principles of Babasaheb Ambedkar had been a priority, they would have definitely condemned the attacks against democracy taking place in Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s West Bengal, where the minds of the Opposition candidates and their families and the common voters are filled with fear as the date of voting keeps approaching.
Sagarneel Sinha is a political commentator and tweets @SagarneelSinha. Views expressed are personal.
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