The poor performance of the CPI(M)-led Left Front in West Bengal in the recently concluded panchayat polls has once again raised the question of whether the communists, who ruled the state for 34 years at a stretch from 1977 to 2011, are becoming a spent force in the state.
As the results show, the Left Front has not been able to secure the second berth in any of the three tiers of the panchayat system. It came in the third position only at the lower tier of gram panchayat, while in the remaining two tiers of panchayat samiti and zilla parishad it came fourth after the Congress, despite contesting in more seats in an arrangement between the Left Front, Congress and the All India Secular Front (AISF).
However, the optimistic CPI(M) leadership has found a silver lining in the improvement in the vote share of the Left Front- Congress- AISF alliance from what it was in the 2021 West Bengal assembly polls.
In the 2023 rural civic polls, the vote percentage of the trio has more than doubled at 21 per cent from 10 per cent in 2021. Proportionately the BJP, despite emerging in the second position in all the three tiers of the panchayat systems in terms of the number of seats won, has witnessed a significant decline in the vote percentage share. The saffron camp’s vote share in the 2023 civic polls has declined to 22 per cent from 38 per cent in 2021.
The CPI(M) leadership has also come out with detailed statistics on how the vote percentage of the Congress- Left Front- AISF alliance has increased since the 2021 assembly polls in successive elections for five municipal corporations, 86 municipalities and by-polls for one Lok Sabha and three assembly constituencies.
“Despite the massive violence and booth capturing by the ruling party and fake nominations filed by them in the rural civic body polls, the series of vote percentage rise for the Left Front and its associate parties prove major opposition in the state,” the CPI(M) leadership said in a statement issued immediately after the results of the rural civic body polls were announced on Wednesday evening.
However, political observers find some jugglery in the statistics of an increase in the vote share as presented by the CPI(M) leadership, despite admitting that there had been a substantial arrest in the erosion in the dedicated Left vote bank since 2021 and also that there had been initial signals of revival of the same.
From the combined vote share percentage of the Left Front- Congress-AISF alliance, it is not clear what has been the individual vote percentage increase for the Left Front. Rather from the number of seats won in the three tiers of the panchayat system it seems that the Congress has gained the most in this alliance arrangement. This is despite the Congress contesting from a lesser number of seats as part of the arrangement.
While now it is almost certain that the Congress and the Left Front will have a pre-poll alliance and a seat sharing agreement for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, political observers feel that in all probability the gain for the Congress will be more than that for the Left Front next year as well.
This is because, according to political observers, the CPI(M) or the Left Front being an extremely regimented force with a similar dedicated and disciplined vote bank, who had been voting for the red force even at its worst times, it will be easier for the Left Front to mobilize their traditional voters behind a Congress candidate as part of an alliance formula. But it is doubtful whether the Congress can achieve the same mobilization of their traditional voters behind the Left Front.
In the 2016 West Bengal assembly polls, there was a similar seat-sharing arrangement between the Congress and the Left Front against the Trinamool Congress. But it resulted in the Congress emerging as the principal opposition party winning more seats than the Left Front despite the latter contesting from more seats.
