It was clear by Monday noon that Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee would not take oath as chief minister for the fourth time, given the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) decisive leads in 184 of Bengal’s 294 seats.
The saffron wave was evident not only in the 152 seats that went to polls in the first phase but also in the 142 south Bengal seats where polls were held in the final phase on April 29. This was a clear indication that anti-incumbent sentiment, fuelled by corruption allegations, had overshadowed all strategies the TMC deployed against the BJP, especially the effort to label central leaders such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah as “anti-Bengali” and “bahiragato” (outsiders).
Corruption charges against senior TMC leaders in chit fund cases involving companies such as Saradha and Rose Valley, corruption in the recruitment of government school teachers and civic body employees, and the coal and cattle smuggling cases appeared to have fuelled the anti-incumbency against the TMC.
“The corruption factor and the alleged arrogance of TMC leaders definitely played a big role. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that the polls were held without a large number of voters who were delisted during the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll,” said political scientist Maidul Islam from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences.
{{/usCountry}}“The corruption factor and the alleged arrogance of TMC leaders definitely played a big role. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that the polls were held without a large number of voters who were delisted during the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll,” said political scientist Maidul Islam from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences.
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Islam appeared to be right because, for example, in Kolkata’s Rashbehari seat, TMC’s sitting MLA Debasish Kumar, who was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) days before the polls in an alleged illegal land transfer case, trailed BJP’s Swapan Dasgupta, a veteran journalist and former Rajya Sabha member.
In the last 2021 state polls, the BJP won only 59 of the 152 seats in 16 districts where elections were held in the first phase on April 23 and only 18 of the 142 seats in seven districts, including Kolkata, where elections were held in phase-2.
The saffron camp claimed that the record turnout of 93.19% in Phase-1 and 92.67% in Phase 2 pointed toward the TMC’s downfall although many argued that the high turnout resulted from the SIR leading to the removal of around 9.1 million names, including dead and absentee voters.
Banerjee, on the other hand, claimed after the polls that the BJP circulated false exit poll numbers indicating a landslide victory and said the large voter turnout pointed toward the TMC’s return.
Aware of the anti-incumbency after being in power for 15 years, TMC fielded 78 members from the scheduled caste (SC) community, 17 from scheduled tribes (ST), 47 Muslims and 55 women (22 more than the BJP) hoping that Banerjee’s social welfare schemes and monthly monetary assistance programmes would work in her favour.
Although TMC registered a landslide victory in 2021 by winning 213 seats against BJP’s tally of 77, the ruling party dropped 74 of those winners and allotted new seats for 15 sitting MLAs. Only 135 sitting MLAs contested their old seats.
But none of these could save the day. Almost all the TMC ministers were trailing their BJP rivals at 1:30 pm on Monday.
Tapan Maity, a shopkeeper in Kolkata’s Gariahat market said, “People were tired of the TMC, especially its local leaders who extorted money from us every week.”