Battle for West Bengal’s soul enters urban heartland

KOLKATA: When a large swathe of urban and semi-urban south Bengal — representing the Trinamool’s core support base — goes to vote on Saturday, something more than party loyalties will be tested. Also on test will be how much Bengal’s upper- and middle-class bhadralok population has warmed to a party that, till even two years ago, was considered somewhat alien in most Bengali homes.
As many as seven ministers (including heavyweights like Partha Chatterjee and Aroop Biswas), assembly speaker Biman Banerjee, BJP MP Babul Supriyo, prominent Tollywood stars (like Srabonti, Payal Sarkar, Lovely Maitra and Yash Dasgupta) and even a former Trinamool heavyweight’s estranged wife, Ratna Chatterjee, are seeking election from constituencies in and around south Kolkata, making this round easily the most keenly watched in the 2021 assembly poll.

Add some of the seats on the other side of the Hooghly to the mix — like Domjur (former Trinamool minister Rajib Banerjee is seeking re-election here but on a BJP ticket), Uttarpara (popular screen personality Kanchan Mallick is the Trinamool candidate), Shibpur (former India cricketer Manoj Tiwary is contesting on a Trinamool ticket) and Chinsurah (where BJP MP Locket Chatterjee is a candidate) — and you have a round with the largest share of VIP politicians and celebrities contesting the election.
Not every heavyweight, however, is looking at an easy win. The BJP’s decision to field Supriyo against minister Biswas from Tollygunge has made this one of the most closely fought battles in this entire election. Kasba and, even more so, Jadavpur — with pockets of stable Left support base — are seats where the contest may end up three-way rather than two. And the southern suburbs of the city — places like Sonarpur — will test how much the BJP has been able to make a dent in the TMC’s core middle- and lower-class suburban support base. In 2019, Trinamool led in most of these south Kolkata pockets.
The Trinamool in 2019 managed to get over a 40% vote share in the two Behala seats, Tollygunge, Jadavpur, Kasba and the two Sonarpur seats. But the BJP too crossed the 30% mark in several of these constituencies — Kasba, Behala and the Sonarpur seats — in 2019, showing how close Bengal’s current number two party was behind the Trinamool.
What also makes this round fascinating is the fact that every slice of the state’s electorate — both the urban (upper, middle and lower) classes and the suburban electorate, both Hindu farmers and Muslim farmers, both Bengalis and other linguistic groups (Punjabis, Gujaratis, Malayalis, Tamils, Biharis and Uttar Pradesh natives) and both upper castes and Scheduled Castes — has a significant presence in many of these constituencies.
These groups bring into play all the issues that have been harped on by politicians — the “idea of Bengal”, the need for industries and jobs, the fight for agricultural land, corruption in lower-level governance and even the rights of Tollywood artistes and technicians — making this round critical for all parties. Winning Bengal without winning this round will render hollow the claim that the winner is truly representative of Bengal’s electorate, however much be its majority in the assembly.
This round also has one seat with the highest female gender ratio in Bengal: Jadavpur (1,068 female voters for every 1,000 male voters). Five other seats — Behala (West), Tollygunge, Behala (East) and Sonarpur (both North and south) — too have net-positive female gender ratios, making Trinamool campaign managers hopeful of reaping the “gender dividend” of the party’s “Bangla Nijer Meyekei Chay” campaign focusing on CM Mamata Banerjee.
Another critical sub-plot — the defection saga — has played out in many of these seats, making net-gainer BJP optimistic about its chances. Banerjee’s key aides in the anti-land acquisition stir in Singur, Rabindranath Bhattacharya and Becharam Manna, are now pitted against each other; the BJP led the Trinamool in Singur in 2019. The Trinamool was number two in several other Hooghly seats like Serampore, Chinsurah, Balagarh, Pandua and Saptagram.
Howrah follows a somewhat similar trajectory. Another prominent Trinamool rebel, Rajib Banerjee, seeks re-election from Domjur. This constituency, however, has a minority voting population of around 40%, making the former cabinet minister focus on his “development work” rather than the aggressive Hindutva line followed by the likes of Suvendu Adhikari. BJP votes surged in Howrah in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls; the Trinamool scraped through in Bally by a mere 295 votes and lost Howrah (North). The BJP approximated the 40% vote-share mark in Shibpur, Howrah (Central) and Howrah (South) as well.