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West Bengal Panchayat elections : CPI(M) gets its biggest jolt |
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The Left parties, especially the CPI(M), have suffered their biggest poll jolt since the 2001 Assembly elections. The CPI(M) lost two districts to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamul Congress and one to the Congress in the Panchayat elections.
Significantly, the CPI(M) lost the election in both Singur and Nandigram areas. Observers see it as the people’s referendum against the CPI(M) and Left Front government policy to forcibly acquire agricultural land for industries that had led to bloody land battles and even rocked the nation.
The defeat in Nandigram resulted in the CPI(M) losing con¬trol over East Midnapur Zila Parishad. However, the CPI(M) managed to retain the zila parishad in Hooghly district and re¬strict the Singur damage to the three zila parishad seats within the Singur block.
The CPI(M) also lost South 24 Parganas district. Murshida¬bad was the party’s sole revenge on the opposition as it won the district back from the Congress.
Overall, the CPI(M) ended up with 13 of the 17 zila par¬ishads in its bag compared with 15 in 2003.
In gram panchayats and panchayat samitis also, the Left conceded space to the opposition. It established control over 1597 gram panchayats against 2303 in 2003. The opposition, primarily the Trinamul Congress and the Congress, increased their tally from 744 to 1479.
In the case of Panchayat samitis, the Left retained control over 183 bodies against 265 in 2003. The opposition was able to increase its hold from 40 in 2003 to 126 this time.
While Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said that he will not comment on the Panchayat elections, Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee claimed that this is the beginning of the end of the CPI(M) rule.
In another significant development, Mamata Banerjee has signaled grassroots level tie-ups with the Congress and all other secular anti-CPI(M) forces to gain control over as many as dis¬trict boards, panchayat samitis and gram panchayats as possible in coming days.
The CPI(M) politburo and state committee are expected to meet soon to review the party’s poor performance in the panchayat elections.
The panchayat elections witnessed large scale violence which claimed 35 lives and injuries to scores of others. The state government however, claimed that the death toll was less compared to the last Panchayat elections in 2003 when 74 people died in pre and post-poll violence. Observers say that there were clash¬es not only between the CPI(M) and the Congress and Trinamul Congress workers, but also among Left Front partners.
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