The AITC got about 75 per cent of votes on an average in the four seats. The opposition parties – especially the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – ought to realise that social welfare programmes of the AITC government have endeared the overwhelming majority of electorate in favour of the ruling party. For at least the Left Front – CPI(M) in the main - it is time to judge those programmes and their implementation dispassionately.

The leader of Opposition in the WBLA and leader of BJP group, SubhenduAdhikari, who defeated AITC supremoMamata Banerjee at the Nandigram constituency in the state assembly elections in 2021 stated bumptiously following the communal disturbances in Bangladesh that his party would win by three times the margin that it had won at the Santipur constituency. But the electorate reacted virulently at Adhikari’s communalistic instigation. AITC candidate BrajakishoreGoswami defeated the BJP candidate by a margin of 63,800 votes while BJP candidate JagannathSarkar won from the same seat by over 28,000 votes five months ago. Sarkar was elected to the LokSabha in 2019 from the Ranaghat constituency of which one of the assembly segments is Santipur. The BJP state and central leaders have to critically scan the irresponsible call by its legislative party leader for polarisation of votes on religious lines. But at the same time, Bengal electorate conspicuously rejected the ‘Hindutva’ politics of BJP.

The most politically significant happening in the four bye-polls in this state is at the Dinhata poll battle where the AITC candidate, UdayanGuha, created an all-time high victory by defeating BJP candidate Ashok Mandal by a margin of 163,089 votes. The previous record was AITC candidate Mohd Abdul Ghani, who in 2021 won by a margin of a little more than 1,30,000 votes and before that in 2001, CPI(M)’s Mandarani Dal set up a record of victory by more than 1,08.000 votes. Five months back, Guha was defeated in the last poll by NishithPramanik, now Union minister of state at the Centre by 57 votes. Guha’s victory is humiliating for Pramanik, who was the chief campaign manager for the BJP nominee. In his booth (no 234) he failed to ensure even one fourth of the polled votes. Mandal too failed to get majority of votes in his booth.

At Kharda seat, AITC candidate SobhandebChattopadhyay won by over 93,000 votes far exceeding the margin of 28,000 votes bagged by AITC candidate KajalSinha who died suddenly a couple of days after the date of polling in April this year. Chattopadhyay won from the Bhowanipur constituency but resigned to help the chief minister Mamata Banerjee from there. At Gosaba where bye-election was held due to the death of elected AITC MLA JayantaNaskar, the AITC nominee SubrataMandal was through by a massive margin of 1,43,059 votes.

The victories emboldened the emerging pan-India image of AITC, more importantly the significance of Mamata Banerjee as one of the decisive leaders in the enveloping anti-saffron face. She once again proved her unique leadership quality in combating the fascist offensive of BJP (read RashtriyaSwayamsevakSangh) under the hegemonistic Prime Minister NarendraModi. Two catalytic factors that once more made this victory much beyond expectation were the swing of woman votes that comprised 49 per cent of electorate and switch-away of ‘Matua’ (Namashudra caste) voters from the saffron vote bank. Both Pramanik in Dinhata and Sarkar in Santipur could win in the 2019 LS election due to the determining chunk of Matua votes.

For the Left, which received 7 per cent of votes, the bye-election outcome is a message of pathos. The Left is not only facing an identity crisis in the hitherto Leftward West Bengal but seems shivering in a state of hard-to-return-to-a-reckonable political bloc. (IPA Service)