West Bengal Panchayat election results to be BJP's growth barometer

As counting of votes in the Panchayat elections in West Bengal began on Thursday, security has been intensified across the state. The low-key rural body election has attracted nationwide attention this time because of organised violence perpetrated in West Bengal, especially by the ruling party Trinamool Congress. However, the surprising element was that opposition parties, led by the BJP, retaliated in many occasions.

The election result on Thursday would be significant in the sense that it would be the first occasion to gauge how much progress the BJP has been able to make ahead of the Lok Sabha elections slated for next year. It is doubtless that the election, which was totally manipulated with the opposition parties unable to file nominations in as many as 17,000 gram panchayat seats of around 49,000 seats, would be a yardstick to judge the performance of the BJP in West Bengal. If the BJP manages to win at least thirty to forty per cent seats despite so many hindrances, that will clearly send shock waves to Mamata Banerjee.

Hence, it is apt to say that pressure has built up on West Bengal chief minister more than the BJP or even the Marxists. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his speech at the BJP headquarters in Delhi on Tuesday, spent around two-a-and-half minutes to describe the political situation in West Bengal. He decided to do that after being advised by the party in view of the reports that were coming from the ministry of home affairs. When Modi was lambasting the ruling party of West Bengal, home minister Rajnath Singh was present and was nodding approvingly. Singh, along with Sushma Swaraj (who was also present at the meeting), is one of the few BJP leaders close to Mamata.

Before Modi’s utterances, sources had said that the home ministry had already sought a report from the state chief secretary of the rampant violence in West Bengal. More than 50 people died since the process of Panchayat elections started in April, but the state government allegedly refused to douse the fire saying nothing was political about the deaths.

In a surprising statement on Wednesday, veteran Marxist leader and former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee said, “All parties opposed to the Trinamool Congress should come under one roof to protest. There was no lack of probity to believe that the ruling party did all these as part of their calculative move. It was a well-planned massacres of lives.”

Chatterjee also defended what Modi said in Delhi and said, “Look at the gravity of the problem. Even the prime minister had to talk about the political situation here.”

Biswapriya Roy Chowdhury, vice president of the BJP in West Bengal, said his would have defeated the Trinamool Congress in maximum seats had there been free and fair elections. “However, even after mass rigging, looting of ballots and killing of voters and party workers, we would give a good show,” he said.

Raj Kumar Roy, presiding officer of a booth in Raigunj in north Bengal, was abducted from the polling stations on the voting day. His mutilated body was later found from a canal outside the town on Wednesday morning. When subdivional officer of Raigunj T. Sherpa went to investigate the matter on Wednesday, irate villagers assaulted him with shoes.

Even after repeated attempts, the state election commission or state government refused to say anything on the allegations made by the civil society and opposition parties in West Bengal.

“Before pointing at us Modiji should see him in the mirror. We have not forgotten Gujarat,” said Partha Chatterjee, cabinet minister and secretary general of TMC.

In the three-tier Panchayat system, the counting for gram panchyats would commence first. Of the 49,000 seats, elections were held in around 32,000 seats. That even made the Supreme Court judges jump off their feet and take a note of it. The apex court has fixed July 3 to hear arguments regarding the seats that Trinamool won uncontested.

Among the 9,240 Panchayat Samiti seats—the second tier— voting has been done in 6,113 seats, where in 3,127 seats, the ruling party won “uncontested”. And the last tier, Zilla Parishad has around 825 seats of which 621 have gone to vote. The rest went to TMC's kitty, again won unopposed. All those seats have become subject to scrutiny from the Supreme Court.

In the backdrop of all these events, all eyes will now be on the seat tally of the BJP. If it gains drastically and manages to get around 30 per cent of the votes despite all odds, one has to believe that the wind of change has finally started blowing in West Bengal. If it does not cross, then also it could argue that this election has not reflected the verdict of the people. Both the arguments will hold the ground in the current circumstances.

So, the BJP has got nothing to lose out on Thursday as the results come in. No other opposition party would be in a position to side step the BJP as the Left and the Congress could not file nominations in as many seats as the BJP managed to do.

But TMC stands answerable as the apparent victory they would have would be contested and be taken out of the electoral history of West Bengal, as it was the case with the state assembly elections in 1972. Millions of Bengalis still do not give any face value or consider that anybody had won or lost the 1972 West Bengal assembly elections that was largely rigged by the then ruling Congress government.

On the other hand, perhaps, the Trinamool Congress would have won majority of the seats had there been free and fair elections. But what made the party go aggressive left millions of people perplexed in West Bengal.

However, the controversy surrounding the Panchayat elections would not die with Thursday's results. Until the Supreme Court gives its verdict in July on the “uncontested” seats won by the Trinamool Congress, the story is far from over.