The Left front chief whip in the state Assembly Mr. S.A. Masih, put it succinctly when he told newsmen, “We may be in government, but we are not in power!” As an epitaph on the last days of the Left Front's increasingly inept tenure, it can hardly be improved upon. Interestingly, there has been no official censure of Mr. Masih by the CPI(M) , although there are still months to go for the assembly polls — a clear sign that the Front has thrown in the towel?

The Left front's ignominious retreat into terminal paralysis began from March 14, 2007, the day 14 poor villagers were killed during a brutal police operation at Nandigram, Midnapore. So wide was the trust deficit between left rulers and their poor subjects, that the latter did not believe that the former were really taking over their land forcibly, to set up an industry!

Left rulers like Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Biman Bose reacted by swinging from one extreme to the other. Fearing that administrative firmness had damaged the left cause, they substituted governance by a totally passive, negative Gandhigiri. As the state withered away, following a somewhat un-Marxian script, the administration shuddered to a halt.

Even as sympathizers, citizens and a section of left observers repeatedly protested that the new course was nothing short of political suicide, nothing has changed within the top echelons of the front even at this writing, three years and more later. Pushed and harried by the Trinamool challenge the left was abandoning ship quietly, without a struggle.

Left leaders forgot that the Nandigram firing was not the outcome of administrative firmness, it was sheer official bungling and an excess. Only good , clean governance over the next few years up to 2011 Assembly polls could have offset the damage. Instead, by remaining supinely quiescent, they only exposed their politically bankrupt thinking.

This alienated even the sympathetic middle class from the Front. The middle class was deeply offended by Trinamool Congress tactics which drove away the Tatas from Singur. But it was also appalled and angry that Bhattacharjee allowed Trinamool to blockade the national highway for 13 days without protest.

From such capitulation, it was natural that Biman Bose, surrendered to stone throwing Muslim mobs, and ordered Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen to leave West Bengal, instead of letting the law take its own course. The rule of law was over in West Bengal. As a result, repeated disruptions of public order, hold up of trains, destruction of public property in government hospitals, stations, even thanas, became part of daily life.

Ms Banerjee, for all her apparent unpredictability, has moved in to take full advantage of the present situation.

At the moment, she is once more at the vortex of yet another political controversy over her open support to the Maoist cause at a rally she held against all sage advice on August 9 at Lalgarh, Midnapore. It has landed the Congress and the UPA government in a major embarrassment.

Yet even her worst critics will admit that the decision to hold a public rally at Lalgarh was politically bold and correct. Lalgarh is the heartland of the Maoist-dominated part of West Bengal. Here, the writ of the administration has not prevailed for nearly three years. And long before that, local CPI(M) leaders had abandoned their homes to live in the police protected safety of Midnapore town or even Kolkata, leaving their hapless followers to face Naxalite bullets !

It was a situation which needed the chief minister and the ruling party to take the political initiative and restore the rule of law. Instead, Bhattacharjee allowed the police to actually withdraw from disturbed areas and close a few thanas! Even the beleaguered British, who lost three District Magistrates in pre independent Midnapore by terrorist strikes, had not run away from trouble in this manner.

Order was restored only when the operation Green hunt began, and the state police forces made a sheepish re -entry into areas they had vacated in panic, hanging on to the coat-tails of the para military troops.

Nor is this the only instance of its kind. Middle class opinion in Kolkata and other urban areas has also reacted positively to the new insistence of the Trinamool leadership not to resort to frequent strikes and disruptions on flimsy grounds. Ms Banerjee took the lead personally in practically ordering MLA Swarna Kamal Saha, a leading bus owner, to desist from participating in a proposed 72 hour transport strike in the state. The chastened Saha withdrew immediately and eventually, following talks with the government, operators called off their proposed strike.

Now the Trinamool controlled INTUC units have served notice that they would not participate in the proposed September national strike called by the CPI(M) affiliated CITU. Trinamool leaders are also about to punish a militant faction of Government employees, who defied the new party directive against strikes and went ahead with its programme. Partha Chatterjee, Trinamool leader in the assembly, indicated that their party affiliation would be withdrawn.

Observers feel this may prove to be the proverbial last straw for the CPI(M). For years, it relied on CITU activists to inflict its disruptive agenda like strikes, roadblocks and bandhs, by force and intimidation on an unorganized population, keeping the police inactive. This may change now, as whether among jute or transport employees, more and more people are going over to the new power in the land, Trinamool Congress.

In the days ahead, the CPI(M) may find it difficult to enforce its successful bandhs and strikes as before, following this division among the working class. The police will not intervene even if groups of workers clash among themselves. And nowhere in India are people so bitter and angry about repeated disruptions and strikes, as in West Bengal, having suffered for so long. The CPI(M) and its allies, through their reckless overuse of the strike as a political weapon, have lost much of their earlier support.

Most observers think that Ms Banerjee will certainly end up weaning the middle class away from the left by initiating more such steps. And if in the process, there is more discipline and greater all round production from West Bengal in the future, even the investment climate may improve, who knows! And then, the much used slogan of “paribartan” will certainly acquire a new meaning. (IPA)