Mamata Banerjee : A long history of fighting high-stakes battles

An old undated photo of Mamata Banerjee. (Image: Reuters)

After the Election Commission of India announced BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari as the winner of the the high-stakes battle for the assembly constituency of Nandigram, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamul Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee has said she will now demand a recount.

After a vote counting process replete with suspense, with both candidates taking the lead periodically with thin margins, the Election Commission announced Adhikari as the winner. After reports emerged that she has conceded defeat in the seat, Banerjee told Bengali language news channel ABP Ananda that a demand for recount will be made owing to rigging, machine tampering and the election commission servers being illegally kept out of service for hours.

While initial results had tilted the probability of winning heavily towards the BJP, local TMC leaders had reportedly been calm, patiently waiting for Didi's ground connect to ultimately turn the tide. The TMC had claimed even during the elections that the tables would quickly turn after counting for the first seven of the total 17 rounds are over.

The Nandigram seat situated in the district of Purba Medinipur had seen high political drama after Mamata Banerjee announced she will challenge her earlier aide in his home base.

Prestige battle

Long considered the fief of the Adhikari family, the Nandigram seat is politically important in West Bengal due to its role in catapulting the TMC to power. In 2007, 14-people most of whom were farmers, had died after the police opened firing in the aftermath of a violent clash with the authorities over the acquisition of land for a planned special economic zone.

Banerjee had alleged the firings had been directly ordered by then West Bengal Chief Minister and CPI(M) leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. Her subsequent agitation in Nandigram had led to a groundswell of support for the TMC which resulted in the party finally wresting power in the state in 2011. The agitation had also made Suvendu Adhikari a trusted aide to Banerjee, wielding considerable influence in state politics.

The seat has been in focus for the BJP and more than 15 national level party leaders and functionaries had campaigned in favor of Adhikari in the run up to the polls. The BJP had also fought heavily, flooding the district of Purba Medinipur which encompasses Nandigram with dozens of high profile roadshows by central leaders including Amit Shah.

However, Banerjee had decided to counter this by campaigning as she always does, at a fever pitch and launching a no holds-barred fight against Adhikari.

Perennial rebel

Banerjee had begun her electoral debut fighting on a Congress Party ticket against CPI(M) heavyweight and later Speaker of the Lok Sabha Somnath Chatterjee during the 1984 general elections, becoming one of India's youngest parliamentarians.

Her first-ever electoral battle had been in the CPI(M) bastion of Jadavpur, a growing suburb in Kolkata's south-eastern fringes recently populated back then by Hindu refugees fleeing violence and persecution in East Pakistan.

An angry populace dissatisfied by unequal government help to provide them livelihood and suffering from an acute shortage of basic living necessities had been tapped by Banerjee through her fiery oratory to enter the Lok Sabha. Banerjee had trained her guns squarely on the establishment, cementing her position as an inherent rebel in West Bengal's violent political system where votes were often usurped by those in power.

Her inaugural campaign has since been analysed by psephologists and poll strategists over decades for its effectiveness and sharp communication in one of the largest parliamentary constituencies in the state back then.

In every election she has fought since then, Banerjee had replicated the grassroot campaign characterised by intensive door stopping across the area, pitching a wide array of promises to voters from all backgrounds and taking the position of a straight-talking rebel, even when she was the incumbent.

Her loss of the seat to CPI(M) leader Malini Bhattacharya in the succeeding general election of 1989 has been the last time she had lost an election in the seat she was fighting in.

Switching to the erstwhile Calcutta South constituency parliamentary constituency in 1991, Banerjee had settled into the seat for the next 18 years. She had won the general elections in 1996 and 1998 on a Congress Party ticket in the sprawling constituency which included the entire southern part of the city.

As a result, Banerjee had to win over the tony residents of posh Tollygunge and Alipur, the refugee colonies in Dhakuria, as well as the poverty-stricken villagers in far away Sonarpur beyond the Tolly canal. But Banerjee's basic poll strategies had always remained the same. This included a rapid volley of colloquial speech, a deep connect with voters and an unmeasured outburst against the ruling dispensation.

Ups and downs

After 27 years with the Congress party, she left the national party in 1997 due to growing differences which escalated into a fight with the then West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Somendra Nath Mitra. Forming the Trinamul Congress, Banerjee became a part of the first batch of seven Trinamul Congress MPs in 1998.

Subsequently, at one point she was the sole MP from her party in 2004, when she held onto the Calcutta South parliamentary constituency with just a 51.1 percent vote share. In her last parliamentary election fight in 2009, she secured the seat with a 57 percent margin.

After the Trinamul Congress seized power in West Bengal for the first time in 2011, Banerjee had resigned from the Lok Sabha to enter the state legislature. She had shifted to the Bhabanipur assembly constituency closer to her home in South Kolkata's Kalighat. As the Mamata wave swept through the state, Banerjee had secured a high 74 percent vote share in the 2011 by-election in the constituency.

This was however cut short to just 47 percent in the last assembly elections in 2016 when Deepa Das Munshi, wife of former Congress leader Priyaranjan Das Munshi, had challenged her. This had been her lowest vote share in a seat she's won till date.

In the Bhabanipur assembly constituency as of 2 PM, senior TMC leader and close associate of Banerjee, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay is leading by over 22,000 votes after the 6th round. The BJP had nominated popular TV actor Rudranil Ghosh as its candidate.

ENDS

Nandigram Assembly Constituency

Mamata Banerjee

First Round: Trailing by 5,791 votes

Second Round: Trailing by 4728 votes

Third Round: Trailing by 8,201 votes

Fourth Round : Trailing by 3,710 votes

Fifth Round: Trailing by 3,775 votes

Sixth Round: Leading by 1,500 votes

(Election Commission of India data updated till 3 PM)