There is a reason why Mamata Banerjee kicked off her rural polls campaigning from North Bengal. Actually there are more reasons than one. According to the political experts, the northern districts of the state that she rules, have always been a bit of a headache for the West Bengal chief minister and winning elections, whether Panchayat, Parliamentary or Assembly has never been a cakewalk.
To begin with, Didi, when she came to power as chief minister in 2011, inherited the problems which had plagued the northern district of Darjeeling for years – the movement for Gorkhaland, in which the Bengal district’s Gorkha-speaking people were demanding a separate state based on language and identity. Interestingly, the BJP, Banerjee’s biggest political rival in the state, kept winning the Parliamentary seat from Darjeeling. In 2009, before she became CM, when Mamata and Trinamool’s Parliamentary seats shot up from just one to 19, Darjeeling was retained by BJP’s then incumbent MP, Jashwant Singh. Five years later and three years after she became CM, in 2014, even though Didi swept the Parliamentary polls in the state, Darjeeling again went to the BJP and S.S. Alhuwalia became the M.P. And last but not least, in 2019, the last Parliamentary elections, BJP, once again won Darjeeling with Raju Bista becoming MP.
“Capturing ground from the BJP in North Bengal is a priority for Didi and her starting her campaigning in those districts is an indication,” says Prof. Biswanath Chakraborty, political analyst.
Indeed as far as Darjeeling is concerned, one of the key factors of BJP winning the seat was the ambivalent signals that the Gorkhaland agitators were getting from the party, which kept the hope, and by so doing, the issue, alive. The state government’s position, on the other hand, was an unequivocal “No.” It had categorically ruled out the division of Darjeeling. In a sense, North Bengal, specifically Darjeeling, was the entry point of the BJP in Bengal. And much of BJP’s subsequent ground-gaining in Bengal has been in the North.
This is particularly glaring as far as the Alipurduar Parliamentary constituency is concerned. Not a single one of the seven Assembly constituencies which make up this Parliamentary constituency belongs to Trinamool. Each and every one of them, on the other hand, has been captured by its chief political rival. And Cooch Behar, from where Mamata began her campaign yesterday, is an Assembly segment of the elusive Alipurduar Parliamentary constituency.
“The campaigning for the Panchayat polls next month is also a campaigning for the Parliamentary elections next year because the results of the rural elections would be an indicator of how we will fare in the general elections,” Trinamool MP and veteran politician Prof. Saugata Roy told this correspondent.
Indeed it has been said of Mamata that she rarely makes a move, political or otherwise, which is not calculated. And so the decision to kick start the campaigning for the rural elections next month (read: general elections next year) from Cooch Behar was no shot in the dark.