Although this first drove out the industries and then alienated the middle class, the comrades still managed to survive till they made the cardinal mistake of targeting the farmers as well in Singur and Nandigram and that, too, for the supposed benefit of their putative “class enemies”, the capitalists. Mamata was able to take advantage of the resultant anger which affected both the urban and rural population.

Since the difference in the voting percentage of the Left and non-Left parties was a mere one per cent in 2006, it proved relatively easy for Mamata’s rainbow coalition of Maoists, Muslims and the Leftists in the Socialist Unity Centre to form an alliance which was capable of sweeping away the Left. The point remains, however, whether she will be able to build on this achievement. Having been a rabble-rouser all her life, it will not be easy for her to become a responsible leader.

Nor listen quietly to the few capable people she has gathered around her like Amit Mitra, formerly of the FICCI, and Debabatra Bandopadhyay, a former civil servant, because, till now, she has run a one-person party. The next few months will show whether she is capable of making the transition. The Left will expect her to fail, of course, not least she has both the votaries of the market economy and “socialists” in her ranks. The policy tussle between the two may frighten away prospective investors. The latter will also remember her shabby treatment of the Tatas.

For the present, however, the most which the people of West Bengal will expect is for her to ensure that a degree of professionalism is restored in the various spheres of official and academic life so that the prime consideration for employment was no longer party affiliation, as when the Left was in power. The communists, too, will have to introspect far more seriously than they may have ever done to ascertain what went wrong. Blaming their own “arrogance”, which they have done since their setbacks in the 2009 parliamentary polls, will not be enough. Far more relevant will be an honest effort to look at the way their cadres functioned.

Unlike Mamata, the Chennai Super Queen, as Jayalalithaa is now being called, has been in power before. But like her West Bengal counterpart, she, too, is known to be temperamental and, unlike her, does not have a sterling reputation for personal integrity. Yet, she will be aware that the reason why she has been voted back to office is the outrage which the average Tamil Nadu voter must have felt about the outgoing chief minister and his party. The reason was not only the 2G spectrum scam involving the DMK’s Andimuthu Raja and now also M. Karunanidhi’s daughter, Kanimozhi, but also the manner in which the state’s ruling family became some kind of a corrupt corporate entity, which presumed that it was accountable to no one.

But, even as the DMK’s self-perception of invulnerability has been busted, it must have become aware that the party is much weaker than ever before. Neither the aging patriarch, nor his two perpetually squabbling sons, will be able to revive it in the near future unless Jayalalithaa makes a huge mistake. It can be presumed, therefore, that at least one regional party is ready to bite the dust, probably never to rise again. As a result, the old DMK-AIADMK dualism of Tamil Nadu politics may be over although whether it will give the Congress or some other party the chance to fill the vacuum cannot be said for certain as yet.

Prima facie, the Congress can pat itself on the back for having returned to power in West Bengal after three decades, though as Mamata’s junior partner, in Kerala after the customary gap of five years, and in Assam for yet another term. For its loss in Tamil Nadu, the party has only itself to blame, for if it had not listened to the DMK’s threats regarding the retention of Raja as the telecom minister, the Congress and its ally might not have fared so badly.

The lessons from the polls are, therefore, clear. Good governance and honesty are the key. Because the Left and the DMK failed to provide these in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, they have had to let go the reins of power. (IPA Service)