This Is Why Arvind Kejriwal’s Move To Contest Panchayat Polls In Bengal Has Put Mamata Banerjee In A Fix

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has decided to contest next year’s panchayat polls in Bengal. Bolstered by its electoral sweep in Punjab, the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP announced its resolve to contest the rural polls in farway Bengal.

And that is sure to put Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee in an extremely difficult situation for two primary reasons.

One, she knows that the AAP is critical to her dream of forming a ‘third front’ and without the AAP, such a ‘front’ would lack credibility and heft. Hence, she cannot really take on the AAP very strongly during the campaign for the rural polls in her state.

Two, she cannot deploy her cadres against AAP candidates, workers and supporters. Elections, especially rural elections, have been very violent in Bengal since the time the Left Front came to power in the state in 1977. And the intensity of violence against opposition candidates and workers, as well rigging, has only increased exponentially since Mamata Banerjee came to power in the state in 2011.

But Banerjee cannot afford to subject AAP candidates and workers to the same treatment that her musclemen and cadres have been administering to those belonging to the Left, Congress and the BJP.

She knows that Arvind Kejriwal will not take kindly at all to his party men suffering as BJP, Congress and Left workers and supporters have suffered at the hands of Trinamool cadres before, during and after every election in Bengal over the past eleven years.

At the same time, Mamata Banerjee cannot afford to allow the AAP to gain a foothold in what she considers her exclusive turf. Left unchallenged, the AAP could gain a sizeable vote share and perform creditably in the rural polls, and that would be unpalatable to Banerjee who is intolerant of any opposition and does not concede an inch of space to any opposition party.

Not everyone in rural Bengal is happy with the Trinamool because of widespread corruption by autocratic Trinamool functionaries who claim a large slice of the welfare pie. Rural folks in Bengal have to share a sizeable portion of the many doles they get from the government with local Trinamool netas. They also have to follow the diktats of these netas who interfere in every aspect of their lives.

This, though, has been the practice since the days of Left rule in Bengal; the communists maintained their stranglehold over rural Bengal by brutally controlling the lives of the people and forcing them to follow the diktats of local party apparatchiks. The Trinamool has followed this noxious practice with gusto.

Also, panchayat polls in Bengal have always been badly rigged with the ruling party (the communists earlier and now the Trinamool) preventing opposition candidates from filing their nominations, or forcing them to withdraw from the fray, assaulting, murdering, molesting and raping opposition workers and supporters, looting their homes and properties and driving them out of their villages.

The ruling party has also rigged the polls through blatant electoral manipulation and fraud like booth capturing, preventing people from casting their votes and voting on their behalf, and many other such malpractices which have been well-documented. All that is possible since panchayat elections are conducted by the state election commission that is controlled by the state government and it is the pliant state police which oversees the conduct of the polls.

That is why the ruling party has always got a walkover in every rural election in Bengal since the late 1970s. All this is not likely to change this time since Mamata Banerjee would not like to let go of the chance (like her Marxist predecessors) to tout a landslide win in rural polls (like in 2018) as indication of her unchallenged sway over vast swathes of Bengal.

The largescale rigging of the 2018 panchayat polls by the Trinamool and the atrocities the ruling party cadres had committed on opposition (primarily BJP) supporters and workers had triggered widespread anger in the rural areas. That is one of the reasons why many voted for the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections where the Trinamool’s cadres did not have a free hand to rig the polls due to the largescale presence of central forces.

The Trinamool would not want panchayat polls to be conducted in a free and fair manner. Though it is sure to win in a majority of the rural bodies if elections are held fairly, the Trinamool will not be content with that. It wants to win all the rural bodies in order to maintain its hegemony over rural Bengal.

And, hence, it is likely to subject AAP candidates, workers and supporters to the same brutalities that it has been committing on the other opposition parties. But that will jeopardise Mamata Banerjee’s cordial ties with Arvind Kejriwal and will make the latter a powerful adversary. The Trinamool chief, who wants to emerge as the leader of a ‘third front’ comprising all regional parties, will not want that.

Also, the national media and civil society is very well-disposed towards the AAP and will react strongly to AAP candidates, workers and supporters being subjected to the atrocities that the Trinamool cadres inflict on opposition functionaries and supporters.

If Mamata Banerjee unleashes her cadres on AAP functionaries in Bengal, it will trigger a national outcry and will permanently dent Mamata Banerjee’s image and standing at the national stage. It did not happen when BJP workers were subjected to brutalities over the past three years because the media and civil society is largely anti-BJP. The AAP is a different ball game altogether and Banerjee will burn her fingers if she allows her cadres to attack AAP workers.

However, as stated earlier, if Mamata Banerjee allows free and fair polls, opposition parties--mainly the BJP, CPI(M) and AAP--may perform creditably. And that would loosen the Trinamool’s grip over rural Bengal, something Mamata Banerjee would not like to happen at all.

Winning rural polls is crucial for the Trinamool to maintain its pole position in Bengal. So it can ill afford to concede space to other parties. And the only way it can sweep the rural polls is by rigging it, something that will bring it in direct confrontation with the AAP. Such a confrontation will have repercussions for Mamata Banerjee at the national level and will stymie her vaunted ‘national’ ambitions.

That is why the AAP’s entry into Bengal and its decision to contest the rural polls puts Mamata Banerjee in a catch 22 situation.