In Banerjee’s Bengal, Unprecedented Uptick In Violence Ahead Of Panchayat Elections

These days, if you pick up a local newspaper in Bengal, there’s a good chance that you will come across a news report of political violence in the state. Since the panchayat elections are approaching, violence too is on the increase. After all, since the late 1960s, politics and violence in Bengal have become inseparable.

But a close observer will notice that there is something unusual about the violence that is currently being witnessed across the state. Bengal is used to seeing ruling party workers terrorise members of the opposition parties before and after elections. Similarly, on the day of voting, reports of assault on opposition party polling agents, booth capturing, and ‘scientific rigging’ are expected. However, the extent of violence which the TMC is reported to have used to prevent the opposition from even nominating their candidates is unprecedented.

Of course, prohibiting opposition candidates from filing nominations during rural polls is not a new thing in Bengal. For instance, during the 2003 panchayat election, the TMC-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance, which was the principal opposition force in the state back then, could not contest in 30.61 per cent of the seats. An India Today report on that election reads thus: “[The ruling CPI(M)] indulged in a tactic unprecedented in elections: unleashing administrative, social and political pressures to prevent potential opposition candidates from contesting.”

The question is - how did Bengal sink this low?

A unipolar polity is now routine in Bengal, where the ruling party, through muscle power and state machinery, tries to marginalise the opposition. But, earlier, the ruling party had a semblance of collective leadership – it was never all about Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Jyoti Basu, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, or their families. But now, collective authoritarianism has been replaced with family authoritarianism in the state. And this has taken political intolerance to a whole new level, as there are lesser checks and balances on the regime’s penchant for elimination of the opposition.

I’ll leave it to the reader’s wisdom to decide if the centralisation of party power in the Banerjee family is a good thing or a bad thing for Bengal. But is it good for the party’s fortunes in the state in the medium-to-long term? The positive aspect, from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her nephew’s angle, is that it has allowed the party greater room for aggression on the ground than the collective leadership allowed the CPI(M). But the worry for the TMC’s strategists should be that the dynastic culture that Banerjee has sprinkled onto the party has been percolating across party ranks to the grassroots level.

Consequently, upward mobility for a dedicated party worker has started becoming more difficult, with nepotism acquiring a firmer grip on the party. This has already encouraged many TMC cadres to shift allegiance to the BJP, where, (like the CPI(M), the worker has a greater chance of rising through the ranks on the basis of merit. If more such defections take place in the future, the BJP will have a greater chance of doing a Tripura in its ‘sister state’.