Lessons for Anna and Mamata

Regional parties are not national parties. That is a given. For that reason a regional party may only expect to encounter trouble if it seeks to pitch its tent outside its home base. West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee failed to factor this in when she planned a rally at Delhi’s Ramlila Ground which, by all accounts, was a resounding flop.

Ms Mamata Banerjee had counted on Anna Hazare getting the crowds at a venue where he has held big fasts. But that was another time. It is hard to say if in the election season people would have turned out to hear the Trinamul brass even if Mr Anna Hazare had been by Ms Banerjee’s side at the rally venue. The old boy was smart and kept away.

There are two lessons here: one for Mr Hazare, the other for Ms Banerjee. For the former, the point he should note henceforth is that while he is an acknowledged environmental reformer with a track record, on the political canvas he can only be called a maverick. With that goes unpredictability and lack of lasting political value.

Ms Banerjee, on the other hand, totally failed to appreciate this and hotfooted it all over the place to secure the reformer’s blessings, believing, wrongly, that this would fetch electoral dividends.

But there is hope yet for the West Bengal CM. She is still the most valued political property on home turf. If she concentrates on that core strength, she may yet find she has a role to play in the post-election coalition-building scenarios, conceivably to the extent of holding the initiative.

In fact, as far as regional parties go, perhaps no other state formation looks as comfortably set as the Trinamul, although four-cornered contests are to be expected for the first time in West Bengal. Like Orissa’s BJD, she is the lone regional party in her state at a time her all-India competitors are relatively weak in her state.

Orissa Chief Minister Navin Patnaik is similarly placed, but Orissa is a smaller state than West Bengal.

As no national party is so comfortably placed as to be able to confidently claim a straight run to 200 seats on its own (as the Congress was able to do in 2009), a block of about 50 seats with parties like the Trinamul Congress, BJD and Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK can be crucial to post-poll coalition-making.

Can the three come together and cohere if they do well in the election? Will they (singly, or together) agree to be with a BJP-led front, or will they seek to cobble together something of their own?

These questions are likely to be on the minds of all the key players in the electoral contest.