Paramilitary personnel waiting to cast their votes for the Sagardighi assembly bypoll in Murshidabad. , Photo Credit: ANI
bElections are generally subdued in West Bengal and do not generate much interest in political circles. In the last few decades, the ruling party has won most of the by-elections. But the bypoll to the Sagardighi assembly seat is an exception, not only because the ruling Trinamool Congress lost, but also because the results have given rise to speculation of a fresh reorganization in West Bengal politics.
The majority of voters in Sagardighi, located in Murshidabad, West Bengal, are from minority communities. Trinamool had been winning the seat since 2011 with a comfortable margin. The by-election was necessitated due to the death of Subrata Saha, a former MLA and former West Bengal minister, in December 2022. Saha had won the seat in 2021 with a margin of over 50,000 votes.
The Trinamool leadership was confident of winning the seat once again without much resistance. But Left Front-backed Congress candidate Byron Biswas surprised everyone by defeating Trinamool candidate Debasish Banerjee by a margin of 22,986 votes on 2 March. In the by-election, Mr. Vishwas, a local beedi trader, polled around 47.4% of the total votes polled, while the Trinamool candidate polled around 34.9%. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate got 13.9% of the vote. This is in sharp contrast to the 2021 assembly elections when the Trinamool candidate secured 50.9% votes, followed by the BJP candidate with 24% and the Congress candidate with 19.4%.
Mr. Biswas’s victory has given the Congress an entry into the West Bengal Assembly after nearly two years. Asserting that the results showed that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was not “invincible”, state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury accepted “strategic support” from the BJP in the bypoll. BJP’s vote share dropped markedly and Congress’s vote share increased significantly from 2021.
The decline in Trinamool’s vote share and increase in Congress’s vote share indicate that a section of Muslims who support the ruling establishment have chosen Congress on this occasion.
Ms Banerjee said the defeat in Sagardighi was the result of an “unholy alliance” between the Left, the Congress and the BJP. He accused the opposition of playing the “communal card”, but added that he did not believe minorities were switching allegiance from the Trinamool.
It is difficult to see any trend on the basis of a by-election to an assembly seat, but it is true that some Muslims are feeling uneasy with the recent developments in the state. Recent scandals, including the mysterious death of student leader Anish Khan, the arrest of Indian Secular Front MLA Naushad Siddiqui, who spent 42 days in jail, and a recruitment scam have tarnished the image of the state’s ruling party. The Trinamool government is also providing cash incentives for Durga Puja and organizing Ganga Aarti to be held in Varanasi. While the Trinamool leadership has vocally opposed the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens, it has maintained a strategic silence on issues such as the construction of the Ram temple and triple talaq.
One of the factors that helped the Trinamool Congress to oppose the BJP in the 2021 assembly elections was the support of the minorities, which constitute 27% of the state’s population. The BJP did not care for the Muslim population then; The assembly seats it won in areas such as Malda and Murshidabad were based on the polarization of Hindu votes. The Muslims did not consider the third option being offered by the Left parties and the Congress.
However, the Sagardighi bypoll indicates some churning on the ground in the last two years. If the state Congress president claims that “strategic support” was provided by the BJP, it indicates that something different is going on in West Bengal politics. The Trinamool will not only have to deal with the three major opposition forces – the Left, the Congress and the BJP – but also retain its vote bank. Despite the existence of several welfare schemes, Muslims are one of the most economically backward groups in the state. Trinamool can no longer take their support lightly.