Mamata is Standing Tall in Bhowanipore

West Bengal's Bhowanipore, along with Assembly seats of Shamshergunj and Jangipur, will go to polls tomorrow, September 30th.

I will concentrate on Bhowanipore constituency because the TMC supremo and CM of West Bengal for last two decades, Mamata Banerjee is contesting here after her sensational defeat with a slender margin by Suvendu Adhikari at Nandigram. 

Bhowanipore can be seen as mini-India because it is as diverse as an Assembly seat can get. It may lie in the heart of Kolkata but it could pass off as mini-India. Such is the demographic phenomenon of Bhowanipore that a large chunk of its population comprises non-Bengalis: Sikhs, Gujaratis, Marwaris, Marathis, Odiyas and Biharis. Many say this was why Mamata, after registering successive victories from Bhowanipore in 2011 and 2016, chose to contest the 2021 election from Nandigram instead: she feared the non-Bengali votes would all go to the BJP following the aggressive campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.

But her party, the Trinamool Congress, insists that she stood from Nandigram only as an assurance to the electorate there that Suvendu stood nowhere near her (thinking his defeat was certain) after local party heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari switched over from TMC to the BJP. But it did not happen. Rather Suvendu emerged as the strong political opposition face of BJP in West Bengal after defeating the TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee. His victory added to his political status in West Bengal as well as stature in the party he defected to.

Coming to Bhowanipore, let's not forget despite the presence of over 40 per cent non-Bengali Hindus in the Bhowanipore constituency, Mamata’s replacement of Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, won the TMC seat by a margin of 28,719 votes in Assembly election just recently concluded on 29th April, 2021.

The Congress has withdrawn itself from Bhowanipore by-poll, while its alliance partner, CPM fielded advocate Shrijeeb Biswas and a BJP's state youth wing leader, also a lawyer, Priyanka Tibrewal are pitted against the seat.

The fledgling BJP, the only elected Opposition in the state, is in disarray with some of its newly elected legislators, most of whom are local regional leaders who had come from Trinamul, have returned to their former party. Initially these defectors were attracted to BJP but after joining the party they couldn't connect with the national pan India party and realised it was not possible for them to hope for a desired position or a status in such a huge party like BJP as it was earlier possible while in TMC to hold positions in state undertakings. Even the Lok Sabha election is far off, Rajya Sabha positions are uncertain and hence, their homecoming is obvious. The homecomings have further enhanced the image of Mamata Banerjee and strengthened the confidence of the Bhowanipore electorate in Mamata.

West Bengal has been under control of party society. These party societies are "para" or mohalla clubs run by youth societies and committees started by CPM with total party dominance in the rural areas, by systematically eliminating political opponents through goons and developing "para" or mohalla clubs through party-society wherein  the clubs in the locality were empowered with money and thereby authority to govern. These clubs spread fast and established its prominence in cities also. Later Mamata also adopted the same tactics of CPM by taking over the goons to run her party the CPM way to control territory and extort money for the services rendered for settling marital discord to property disputes to extension and renovation of property to family violence, landlord-tenant dispute and even sale-purchase of property.  Thus Mamata followed the same line of violent control of territory by empowering the locality clubs as had been adopted by previous CPM rulers. Such income was also a source of  local leaders. Those who left TMC and joined BJP were denied income from party offices as BJP doesn't have such party societies. Thus denied power, position, status and more importantly regular income from cut money, "tolabaji" being stopped, the TMC defectors are coming back to the party. This "return of the natives" adding to  Mamata's image.

It would be wrong to assess the political wisdom of BJP fielding Priyanka Tibrewal just because she took up and led the post-poll violence in the courts even upto High Court like a crusade. At the same time she lost to TMC in the 2021 Assembly election from Entally constituency. She also lost the Municipal councillor election held in 2015. Let it be known that it is not the sole aim of BJP to defeat Mamata. Still Tibrewal has been chosen by BJP to field her against Mamata because she is an effective spokesperson and an orator and comfortable with local languages. She is a fit candidate for communicating with a large number of Bengali as well as non-bengali Bhowanipore electorates in Bangla, Hindi, Marwari, Gujarati and English. BJP is hoping that Ms Tibrewal should work hard to increase her vote share in a demographic set up of Bhowanipore where 40 % electorate are non-Bengalis.

Bhowanipore constituency is in south Kolkata but it has the old city phenomenon of secular and inclusive Renaissance culture of Vivekanand, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Satyajit Ray and other legendary scholars, writers, film and theatre personalities of North Kolkata. People of  Bhowanipore value the heritage of the old city of north Kolkata. It has many Gurdwaras -- famous being Gurudwara Sant Kutiya, many masjids, famous being Sola Ana Masjid and many temples, famous being Laxmi Narayan Mandir. Communal harmony can be best seen in Bhowanipore. One of the Durga Puja pandal themes of puja festival this year in Bhowanipore is "Khela Hobe" -- the famous TMC’s war cry during the Assembly election with correlation to performance at the Tokyo Olympics. Mamatadi is seen as facing no challenge in Bhowanipore as she is not only looked up as upholding all inclusive secular ethos of Renaissance culture but also dearly regarded as "Bangal ki beti". Her popularity has only soared in the past few months after TMC's performance in the Assembly election. Earlier, she was in people’s minds, now she seems to be in their hearts.

Trinamul’s well-oiled machinery was put into action after the Election Commission announced the date for holding by-election. Prominent South Calcutta leaders and ministers Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad Hakim, Subrata Bakshi and Madan Mitra were given responsibility to micro-manage the wards. 

The results of all the three bypolls would be announced on October 3, just about a week before Durga Puja, Bengal’s grandest festival.