In Bengal hinterland, poll victory might hinge on ground visibility

E-PaperSubscribeSubscribeEnjoy unlimited accessSubscribe Now! Get features like “When the floods came, nobody helped us. It’s true that the local party (Trinamool Congress, or TMC) arranged emergency supplies, but those in other neighbourhoods got it through corruption, even though we were the most-affected.” A significant portion of rural Bengal’s population still votes on local political economy. PTI (Handout)In a Rajbanshi village on the banks of the Jaldhaka River in Maynaguri constituency, an elderly woman tells us in detail about the horrific floods that took place last monsoon leading to loss of property and livestock. They live on what historian Debjani Bhattacharya describes as “liquid land” — a space that can be both called land and water but the government must categorise to be one or the other. Sadly the Jaldhaka is an active river with the banks rapidly shifting towards their village, and floods are likely to continue regularly. Soon, the woman’s grandson, who has come back from Mumbai from his construction job to vote, joins in, “The TMC is corrupt and did nothing for us when the floods hit. We need to vote as Hindus and vote for the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party).” The elderly lady wore a sceptical look on her face and cut her grandson off, “Don’t listen to him. No one is voting for the BJP here. We’ve never even seen them.” While the local panchayat is led by the TMC, both the member of legislative assembly (MLA) and the member of parliament (MP) are from the BJP. But upon further investigation, we found that no one — not even the grandson — could name the MLA or MP. The young man from Mumbai tried once more to convince his family, “The Muslims in the city put a padlock on a mandir.” But even this new tack doesn’t cut ice; they can’t comprehend this new “Hindu-Muslim” language. While TV studios and social media are rife with grand narratives, Hindu-Muslim, electoral rolls, and industrialisation, a significant portion of rural Bengal population still votes on local political economy. The panchayat is the centre of political life and voters assess the capacity of party to address their needs. It’s a major challenge for the BJP. Even voters fed up with the TMC will never vote for a party they cannot name or see; parties must meet their constituents’ basic needs. Unlike the cities such as Siliguri and Jalpaiguri decorated with “Jai Shree Ram” flags, saffron markers are noticeably absent in many rural settings. In our travels, BJP supporters’ language is tinged with Hindu nationalism, but it’s a language that doesn’t make much sense to many rural populations where Hindus and Muslims live peacefully next to each other. It also is a hard-sell to numerous social groups such as the Rajbanshis, who define themselves in ethnic terms and share culture and language across religions. Nearly 500km away in Kalyani constituency, in villages just a few kilometres north of the university town, we encounter similar riverine problems. For the last few decades, the Hooghly River has been shifting at a reasonable pace, eating up villages and “resurfacing” once-submerged land. In the early 2000s, the erstwhile Left government allotted land to farmers whose previous land had been swallowed up by the river in these areas. But the party maintained control of the land and it could only be sold informally between local villagers. The TMC government has been active in slowing the movement of the river so that some settlement is possible on the banks. Here, access to land and ability to cope with an unpredictable environment has consistently been mediated through sophisticated party networks. The sheer presence and familiarity with the TMC’s party network continues to be a major advantage for the party. If our visit to Maynaguri gave an image of endemic poverty, the villages in Kalyani look very different. The land here is very fertile, giving at least three harvests a year, and people grow tomatoes, parwal (pointed gourd), cauliflower, and a variety of other vegetables. None of the people we surveyed reported irregular delivery of cash benefits like Lakshmir Bhandar across party lines. But outside of the most vulnerable villages, the money ( ₹1,500 per month) doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. Five years ago, when we travelled in these areas, chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her schemes were on the tip of everyone’s tongues. Whether or not people support the TMC, today, cash schemes are rarely the first thing mentioned by voters. Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a sweeping mandate in 2019 around labharthi (beneficiary) voters but didn’t get as much electoral benefit in 2024, and it seems that Banerjee’s cash schemes will not have the electoral impact they did five years ago. As one respondent in Kalyani told us, “All parties now promise benefits, and voters, irrespective of which party they support, get benefits. But this focus on benefits has prevented parties from addressing the real issues facing farmers.” The TMC is clearly facing anti-incumbency in many pockets, and it actually dropped a number of well-known faces from its candidate list to address this issue. Rather than Banerjee’s image, the TMC’s sheer presence in the daily lives of citizens and its problem solving networks are its strongest selling point. Virtually every respondent had visited a duare sarkar (government at doorstep) camp set up by the TMC — allowing the party to reach citizens even where the state can’t do so. The BJP seems to have understood its absence on the ground is a problem. Perhaps the Special Intensive Review (SIR) exercise and a massive paramilitary deployment into West Bengal for the election may make a difference and help the party. It remains to be seen if this is enough to defeat the TMC. Bhanu Joshi is visiting assistant professor at Ashoka University; Neelanjan Sircar is an associate professor at Ahmedabad University. The views expressed are personal.