Why the Trinamul Congress has not yet managed to make inroads in the urban belts despite the party gaining a significant number of seats in the Lok Sabha election is a point of concern for the party and the leadership. The issue was discussed at TMC chairperson Mamata Banerjee’s house and the district heads have been asked to introspect first and then table a report at the earliest. The move is necessitated as the state plans to hold civic body polls in a number of towns within a couple of months.

The urban voters haven’t chosen the Trinamul Congress candidates while exercising their franchise across the South Bengal districts, while the rural belt stuck with the Trinamul Congress. In the temple town of Bishnupur, the TMC has lost the entire 19 wards miserably. In Bankura, the ruling party has won just in four wards and recorded defeat in 20 wards. This actually caused TMC candidate Sujata Mondal’s marginal defeat by a meagre 5,567 votes in the seat. An ‘outsider’ Kirti Azad of TMC though defeated BJP’s firebrand leader Dilip Ghosh in Bardhaman Durgapur Lok Sabha seat by 1.37 lakh votes, he however trailed in 19 of total 35 wards of Burdwan town.

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In Durgapur Municipal Corporation area where election is due in a couple of years, Ghosh was much ahead of Kirti in 33 out of total 43 wards. In Purulia town, the TMC trailed behind BJP in 20 out of total 23 wards, which caused TMC candidate Santiram Mahato’s defeat by a margin of 17,079 votes, though he played comfortably in the seven Assembly segments. In Katwa, the home town of TMC district president Rabindranath Chatterjee, TMC’s Dr Sharmila Sarkar received insignificant votes compared to BJP’s Asim Sarkar, a Baul singer.

The BJP still isn’t acceptable well in rural Bengal as a large chunk of voters considers the party as a political vehicle of the northern Indian leaders having dominance of ‘non-Bengali’ people. But, voters of urban Bengal don’t maintain any such reservation mostly because they seemed to be perturbed with the alleged corruption of the civic body heads, Councillors over the period.

“Also, the muscle flexing by the TMC during civic polls played a key factor behind people’s annoyance,” narrated Arabinda Chatterjee, professor of Bankura University who was once a Chhatra Parishad leader before joining as a teacher. “It’s lack of organisational strength and proper organisational structure in the towns against CPM’s strong network that the party has leased out to the BJP, which caused TMC to suffer,” claimed Mahadev Roy, a politically conscious retired bank employee of Durgapur town. Rabindranath Chatterjee said, “It is high time for proper introspection and investigation, what we’ve pursued following instructions from the stare headquarters.”