West Bengal Results | The road ahead for Congress and Left is fraught with challenges

(Image: Reuters)

The Congress and the Left parties, led by Communist Party of India (Marxist), have failed to win a single seat in the recently-held West Bengal assembly elections. This is a mighty fall for CPI(M) which has ruled the state for 34 years (1977-2011) and the Congress which has never won less than 20 seats in the state, despite the split engineered by Mamata Banerjee in 1998.

The fall from grace has been sharp for both the parties and this has happened in two phases.

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The first blow was handed in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections where their combined vote share declined to 14 percent. The Left was decimated with bulk of its cadre and voters moving to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Congress tally reduced by half from four in 2014 to two seats in 2019.

The Left supporters picked up the BJP over the CPI(M) to protect themselves from the alleged violence perpetrated by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) workers, especially after the 2018 panchayat polls.

The second blow was handed in the 2021 assembly elections when their vote share further declined by 5 percent. Amidst a communally-charged atmosphere and a Hindu awakening among the lower caste groups, minorities which account for 27 percent of state’s population have tactically voted en-block for the TMC due to the fear of the Citizenship Amendment Act being implemented if the BJP were to come to power.

The Congress failed to open its account in its stronghold areas of Maldah, Murshidabad and Uttar Dinajpur. The Left and Congress together had swept the Malda region in 2016 bagging 37 of the 47 seats. In 2021, the TMC won 35 seats there, while the BJP won the remaining 12.

Both the parties have also lost a sizeable section of their SC/ST support to the BJP, which has been working among these communities through the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)’s social programmes. As a result, the Congress and the Left, which had won 19 SC/ST reserved seats in 2016, failed to make any impact in 2021.

There is an existential crisis for both the parties in West Bengal with the BJP emerging as the principal opposition party. West Bengal Congress Chief Adhir Ranajn Chowdhury has admitted, “If this divisive politics prevails, it will be tough for us.”

The central leadership of the Congress may go soft on Banerjee for the sake of opposition unity as it needs her support to take on the BJP in 2024. Banerjee has clearly emerged as the real Congress in the state and the grand old party may surrender to this fate.

With the alliance not making any impact, and the Left Democratic Front’s grand victory in Kerala, the Congress-Left alliance in West Bengal may be called off.

About 11 BJP workers have been killed in post-poll violence, and there is a fear that this could be a repeat of what was witnessed on the Left cadre between 2016 and 2018. This is a moment which will test the BJP and its leadership about how steadfast will it stand behind its people and defend them.

The Left can draw comfort from the fact that many of its sympathisers have not deserted it due to ideological moorings, but simply because the BJP was better placed to take on the TMC. The proportion of the West Bengal electorate that does not identify with any party is very high at 68 percent. So, there is a chance that some may return to the Left fold if it is able create a perception that the CPI(M) is better placed to take on the TMC before 2024.

Banerjee, too, prefers the Left over the BJP. "I am opposed to them politically but I don't want to see them as zero. If they had won seats instead of BJP it would have been good," she said. There is a possibility she could go all out to weaken the saffron party, wooing some disgruntled leaders back and engineering defections, thus helping in the revival of the Left.

If the Left works on the ground raising issues concerning people, continues with its policy of infusing fresh blood in the organisation, and emerges as the real hope for anti-TMC voters, it can make a comeback. However, the road ahead is long and tough.