If there is one similarity between the Prime Minister of India and the Chief Minister of West Bengal, it is that they take their politics seriously. Just as Mr Narendra Modi does not shy away from campaigning for even municipal elections if the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) assesses it will benefit the party, Ms Mamata Banerjee has jumped into campaigning for the Trinamool Congress (TMC) for the forthcoming panchayat polls in Bengal. While poll-related violence has already begun, albeit sporadic as of now given Bengal’s gory history of political violence, she has held well-attended public meetings in Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar.

According to observers, a lot is at stake for the Chief Minister which is why she has decided to campaign extensively in the panchayat poll for the first time since 2011 when she came to power. It was as far back as 2008 when the Chief Minister last campaigned for the panchayat polls, that too episodically. But it is different this time around. Ms Banerjee wants to ensure an emphatic win in the gram panchayats, panchayat samitis and zilla parishads of the state because a landslide victory in the three-tier polls would not only demoralise a BJP which is in apparent disarray but also confirm the TMC’s status as the strongest anti-saffron political party in West Bengal.

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That acquires political criticality as it will add significant heft to Ms Banerjee’s bargaining power in relation to the Congress’ and Left Front’s claims on the number of seats they would want to contest in the 2024 Lok Sabha election under a putative grand alliance of Opposition parties. It has been pointed out that it is after taking into consideration the fact that the results of the panchayat polls are scheduled to be declared on 11 July that Ms Banerjee has reportedly asked for the next meeting of Opposition parties to be held in Shimla on 12 July ~ and not 10 July as proposed by the Congress. With a massive win, as the TMC is widely expected to achieve, the West Bengal Chief Minister will be in pole position to dictate terms to the smaller anti-BJP political forces in the state. The talk is that Ms Banerjee wants the TMC to contest 40 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal, though she may concede a couple of more seats to the Congress or Left Front if and when push comes to shove. The latter two parties are expected to demand, as their opening gambit, at least a dozen Lok Sabha seats to contest in 2024. But if they perform poorly in the panchayat polls, Ms Banerjee is likely to carry the day. The Trinamool Congress’ performance in the 2008 panchayat polls, it may be recalled, dealt the first real blow to the electoral dominance of the Left Front in Bengal. And in the Lok Sabha election which followed in 2009, the TMC upstaged the CPI-M by winning 19 seats, up from just one in 2004. The seeds of political-electoral success thus sown are sought now to be replanted by the TMC, as it wants to ensure that the lost ground it retrieved in the 2021 Assembly poll after the BJP had emerged victorious in 18 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election does not slip from under the party again.