Why opposition parties in Bengal are uniting against Mamata Banerjee's TMC
Mamata Banerjee might succeed in uniting the Opposition against the BJP at the Centre, but back home in Bengal, she's a political pariah. The Trinamool Congress has been singled out as the villain that is trying to manipulate the administrative and electoral machinery to win the rural polls.
The reign of terror and violence, allegedly unleashed by the Trinamool Congress against its opponents, over filing of nominations for the imminent panchayat polls has made the position of the ruling party somewhat weak.
It is being accused of not respecting the basic principles of democracy - the right of the Opposition to take part in the polling process.
Such has been the growing rage against the ruling party and its alleged hooligansim that all other parties in the Opposition, the CPI(M), the BJP, the Congress and others, have decided to form a joint brigade and put up a consolidated defence mechanism to counter the attack.
CPI(M) state secretary Surjya kanta Mishra has stressed the need to take out large processions of some thousand people, who could be from other political parties and different outfits as well, at the time of filing nominations. He also said that all resources and political strength needed to be mobilised to challenge the ruling party and its strategy to win the panchayats, uncontested and hands down.
The filing of nomination, which started on Monday (April 2) and is supposed to be wrapped up by the beginning of next week, has seen unprecedented violence, injury and even deaths in a span of just three days.
"The ruling party has deployed supari killers, hired goons to scare away the candidates, whereas they are reluctant to deploy central forces to ensure smooth electioneering process and free and fair polls. They are trying to throttle democracy. We have told our party workers to fight them back," said state BJP president Dilip Ghosh.
Already unofficial alliances have been formed in Rampurhat and Mayureswar in Birbhum district. These areas have seen massive violence and flashpoints between the cadres of Trinamool Congress and the BJP. At Rampurhat, leaders of the BJP, the CPI(M) and the Congress have decided to stage a joint march while going to file nomination papers on April 6 and 7.
In Murshidabad and North Dinajpur, the Opposition parties are joining in numbers to take on the muscle power of the ruling party.
While political observers believe this is an effective method to resist and corner the Trinamool Congress, they are also not ruling out the possibility of a strategy to alienate the TMC for violating the basic norms of democracy.
The CPI(M) party bosses are, however, wary of being seen as joining hands with the BJP in combating the Trinamool Congress. After Mishra's statement yesterday (April 4), where he stressed the need for all parties to put up a united resistance against TMC, today he placed the ruling party and the BJP in the same category, calling them autocratic and not different from each other.
However, the ground situation is very different. The Opposition has become one, irrespective of the diktats of their respective leaders, to fight the Trinamool.
BJP leader Mukul Roy, however, saw no reason to worry about such an understanding at the ground level.
After all, it's wartime and everything is fair.