Kolkata: With the month-long polling soon coming to an end in West Bengal, the biggest question is whether the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) will be able to retain its hold over Kolkata.
Considered as a stronghold of the party for years, TMC is keen to repeat its 2011 feat of winning all the 11 constituencies some of which it won with a margin of over 90,000 votes. Banerjee’s call for paribartan (change) was enough to get TMC a comfortable victory in almost all constituencies then. Even the then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya lost his seat.
However, five-years later, a collapsed flyover and videos showing leaders accepting bribes has cast a shadow on the TMC’s prospects. All senior TMC leaders, including Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad Hakim, Sovan Chatterjee and Iqbal Ahmad, who have been discredited by the scam, are in the fray in south-Kolkata on Saturday.
“We will win all the constituencies and those who are trying to discredit us will get a no confidence from the people on May 19,” chief minister Mamata Banerjee told Gulf News. The election results for all the five states, including Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Pondicherry will be declared on May 19.
Though Banerjee has been trying to give a morale boost to her party cadres ahead of this crucial phase, TMC workers are a worried lot, especially due to the flyover collapse early this month in central Kolkata that killed 27 people.
“The collapse happened at the worst time for us as it took away the sheen of all the civic developments undertaken by the government in the last five years,” said Rabi Roy, a TMC worker.
It is true that the city has undergone a major improvement in civic amenities in the last five years with well-lit roads; transformation in waste disposal process and a much cleaner city.
However, Banerjee’s off-the-cuff remark five years ago of turning Kolkata into “London” has now come to haunt her and has become a part of the colloquial joke in the city.
“She [Banerjee] is fond of making statements that often come back to haunt her. Sometimes they are made casually, but in this era of 24-hours media [coverage] she needs to be more careful,” said her neighbour Rupali Das.
Though the issue of law and order, especially security of women, is a major issue, another remark by Banerjee during the Park Street rape case where she called the incident “fabricated” has come to haunt her.
“When things go against her she terms them as fabricated,” said Srabani Gupta, a social activist. “In truth, inspite of being the state’s first woman chief minister, she has done little to improve the life of women here,” Gupta added
Others warn that it will be wrong to term the city as a TMC stronghold as the city reacts first to incidents and during the Left rule, the city voted for the opposition to register its protest.
Another factor that could harm the TMC is the politicisation of educational institutes in the city. Be in Jadavpur University or Presidency Collage (now university), all these institutions were under attack from TMC in the last five years.
“The incidents in Presidency and Jadavpur and the attacks on teachers and professors were shameless and quite the opposite of what we had expected from her. She had promised to make education free of politics but did just the opposite,” said a professor unwilling to be named.
However, her supporters are confident of Banerjee getting back at the helm for the second time. “She will win. When you come to power for the first time, there are few problems mostly due to inexperience, but this time she will outperform everyone and make Bengal the best state in the country,” said Pallav Gupta, a TMC member.
