MLA SHOPPING IN WEST BENGAL
On August 5, Debesh Das, a minister in the erstwhile Left Front government in West Bengal, received an unexpected phone call. On the line was a member of Prashant Kishor’s Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), the organisation tasked by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) with ensuring its victory in the assembly election scheduled early next year. “They began by praising my work in Entally constituency before getting to the point of the phone call that ‘PK’ would like to meet me. I politely requested them not to disturb me,” says the CPI(M) leader.
Lakshmi Kanta Roy, a former twoterm CPI(M) legislator from Dhupguri in Cooch Behar also received feelers from I-PAC recently. The caller, says Roy, expressed admiration for his simple lifestyle, including his tin-roofed home in Jaldhaka and said the TMC needed such politicians to shore up its electoral prospects. “I was promised an assembly election ticket and, eventually, many other things. But I told them not to call me again,” says Roy.
These are not random moves but part of a concerted effort by Kishor to beef up the TMC ranks with strong candidates for the assembly election, where the party faces a serious challenge from the BJP. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP won 18 of Bengal’s 42 seats, vaulting from two seats in 2014 and finishing just four behind the TMC. If this is any indicator of which way the wind is blowing in Bengal, Mamata Banerjee and her party have a do-or-die battle at hand.
Among the 12 Left politicians approached by the TMC so far are also Banamali Roy, a five-time CPI(M) MLA from Dhupguri, and Mamata Ray, a former legislator from the same constituency. “They introduced themselves on the phone as members of an NGO, the Prashant Kisan Sangstha. It was only when they came over on August 9 that I learnt they were working for Prashant Kishor and the chief minister. They suggested [that if I joined the TMC], my financial problems would be over and I would be able to afford a car and a better house,” claims Mamata Ray, who lives in a modest bamboo-fenced house and moves about in an e-rickshaw.
The TMC, though, denies baiting politicians from rival parties and insists it’s merely playing to ‘popular demand’. “I cannot say who made the first move, but if people are willing to join us, how can we sit back and do nothing?” asks Partha Chatterjee, party spokesperson and state education minister.
The TMC’s search for candidates with a clean record couldn’t have been more timely. Cyclone Amphan and the Covid lockdown have left the Mamata Banerjee government exposed to allegations of widespread corruption in relief and rehabilitation work, including the supply of free foodgrains to the poor. Last year, a row had erupted over poor beneficiaries allegedly being forced to bribe local TMC leaders to access central and state government grants. “In rural Bengal, the TMC has become synonymous with corruption and extortion. The BJP appears to have succeeded in creating a perception that the ruling party is interested in serving the interests of its own leaders and workers, and not the commoner,” says Prasanta Ray, a Kolkata-based political analyst and former professor of Presidency University. “Even Mamata Banerjee has been forced to admit to corruption and declare that it will not be tolerated.”
Political observers feel the TMC will need several high-profile inductions to dispel the notion being created by the BJP that it’s a sinking ship. “Voters also judge a political party’s strength on the basis of the number of leaders and workers joining it in the run-up to an election. That
While the TMC denies wooing Left leaders, several of those approached claim they were offered tickets and even ministerial berths
perhaps explains the frequent induction exercises being conducted by the TMC,” says Kolkata-based political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty, pointing to the spate of defections to the BJP before the last general election. “Sometimes, the entrants are big names or celebrities, but mostly inductees are ground-level workers,” he adds.
The TMC recently held such exercises in Barrackpore and Bhatpara in the North 24 Parganas district, the stronghold of TMC leader-turned-BJP MP Arjun Singh. But a prominent TMC minister, speaking on condition of anonymity, described those taken on board as “extras in a film shoot”.
Analysts say the TMC is really keen on imports from the Left, and that’s because even while the communist parties have seen a massive erosion in their base—their vote share dropped to 7 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha election— many of their leaders still have a clean, pro-poor image. Also, Kishor may be betting on Left leaders being open to joining the ruling party in Bengal to revive their political careers. His team has reportedly drawn up a list of ‘popular, honest and hardworking’ Left leaders on the basis of a survey.
Some Left leaders being wooed by the TMC claim they were offered party posts, assembly election tickets and even ministerial berths. Disapproving of such tactics, a TMC veteran says on condition of anonymity: “Is Prashant Kishor hoping to draw in honest people by using unscrupulous means? This is what happens when the party brings in an outsider to gauge the mood of the people.” Kishor, who was hired by Mamata’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee in June last year, is making organisational changes in the TMC that have not gone down well with the party’s old guard.
Whether or not Left leaders give in to the TMC’s overtures, grassroots workers have been joining the party, either forced by ground realities or lured by the promise of a brighter future. At least 300 Left members and sympathisers from Burdwan, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Hooghly have joined the TMC in the past six months. The TMC hopes grassroots inductions from the Left will strengthen the party’s base at the booth level. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, a big chunk of the BJP’s 40 per cent vote share came from Left supporters. Mamata has often rued this and urged Left leaders to prevent the BJP from breaching their support base.
Kishor’s strategy to woo Left leaders goes beyond headcount and support mobilisation. “He is also trying to gauge if Left supporters still see our party as their prime enemy, as they did in the Lok Sabha election and worked to shore up support for the BJP,” says a TMC minister. Indeed, a wide section of the Left rank and file had helped the BJP in booth management as the saffron party lacked organisational presence in over 30,000 polling booths. Given this, the TMC could do with some Left hands on the deck. Bengal has 77,000 assembly polling booths and they will need effective manning, both in terms of engaging with voters and ensuring rigging-free voting. “Given all the internal bickering and poaching by the BJP, the TMC cannot afford to rely on its own strength alone. Left cadre and leaders, if they can be won over, would be most handy,” says a TMC minister.