West Bengal for dummies

For all those of you just logging onto the elections in West Bengal, here is a crash course on what's what.

First lesson: This election, none of the rules of the past apply. Because of two things - the delimitation of constituencies, which has thrown all calculations based on old records to the winds, and because of the unprecedented political turbulence in the state over the last two and a half years over Singur and Nandigram.

Never in the last 32 years of its rule has the Left been so much on the defensive and the Opposition so aggressive.

So be prepared for big changes in the status quo, which is 35 seats for the Left, 6 for the Congress and 1 for the Trinamool. Total 42.

CHAPTER ONE - THE LEFT

For 30 years, the Left got its strength from one thing that it did about 30 years ago. Land reform. What is land reform? Well, you could call it the Robinhood syndrome. Take from the rich. Give to the poor.

Soon after it came to power in 1977, the Left passed laws limiting the amount of land anyone could own. If you had excess land, the government took it and redistributed among those who didn't have any.

The result? Everyone in Bengal's rural heartland - well, certainly a significant number - got a piece of land which they could call their own. On it they could grow enough paddy for themselves with maybe a little left over to sell for hard cash with which they could buy other essentials for survival.

Bottom line:  No one went hungry, at least theoretically.

And for 30 years, the Left rode on the success of its land reforms policy.

Back to 2009: From a party that gave land to the poor, the Left suddenly became land-grabbers, at least in the eyes of many, certainly the Opposition. It was only trying to acquire land for industries. But, whatever its intentions, the execution of its intent was such, the damage was done and Nandigram and Singur became the new battlefields.

The battle cry: No farmland for factories, certainly not forcibly acquired farmland.

Nandigram was to be the site of a chemical hub and Singur the Tata's Nano factory. At both places, such was the resistance, both plans had to be scrapped. In the bargain, at least14 people died - most in police firing - at Nandigram and at Singur, the murder of 18-year-old Tapashi Mallik became a kernel around which the opposition coalesced.

The image of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, once the poster boy of the Left and viewed as industry-friendly, was indubitably blemished for failing to deliver to industry and, therefore, to the people.

CHAPTER TWO -- THE OPPOSITION

April-May 2006. Assembly polls in West Bengal. The results - Out of 294 seats, 233 for the Left, the balance 60 seats divided between the Congress, the Trinamool and sundry other opposition parties. (1 election was not held because the candidate died.)

Never in the last 30 years had the Left won with such numbers. Never had the Opposition been so decimated. The Trinamool didn't even have enough numbers to be called the main opposition in Assembly. It has 29. It needed 30.

From then to now, how did the Trinamool rewrite its fortunes? For rewrite it did !

First, Mamata Banerjee was prevented from going to Singur when people there started protesting land acquisition for the Tata Nano factory. That was in September 2006.

Then she went on a 25-day hunger-strike to protest land acquisition there, land acquisition that she claimed was forcible. That was December. 2006.

January 2007, trouble began at Nandigram. On March 14, the police opened fire and 14 people died. Nandigram came under the control of the Trinamool-led Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee. Then in November, the CPI-M partially reinstated its writ.

A major turning point was the panchayat elections of May 2008. Mamata's campaign against farmland for factory paid rich dividends. Trinamool swept two districts - East Midnapore (of Nandigram fame) and South 24 Parganas out of 17. Unprecedented!

In terms of vote percentage, the Left polled 52.75%. But the Congress with 16.3 % votes and the Trinamool with 24.64% votes suddenly emerged as a viable opposition if they were to unite.

Finally, unite they did, on March 1, when Pranab Mukherjee and Mamata Banerjee jointly announced that they would be fighting the Lok Sabha polls together, thus putting a huge pressure on the Left.

Going by the elections results of Lok Sabha 2004, if the Congress and the Trinamool had been united then, they would have won 13 seats, almost double of what they got. 7.

If you want to be more optimistic about the opposition's chances, here's the voter percentage for 2004;

• Left                  50.72 
• Congress          15.16
• Trinamool         21.04

Add the last two figures and you have a not inconsequential  36.20 %

CHAPTER THREE - DELIMITATION & OTHER FACTORS

What's delimitation? Well, it is the exercise of setting new boundaries of parliamentary  constituencies based primarily on population growth. Delimitation was last held 33 years ago. Since then, the population has grown considerably. So the exercise was undertaken in 2006 and this election will be the first to be held in fully delimited constituencies.

Lakhs of voters will be affected. Take my case. I live in Salt Lake in Kolkata. All these years, I was a voter in the Dum Dum constituency. But after delimitation, I am now a voter in the Barasat constituency!

For the candidates, the implications are much graver than mere surprise. It means entire assembly segments have exited their constituency or joined it.  If you knew how an assembly constituency had voted in the past, you could calculate how it might vote in future. But now, gone are those certainties.

Given that, the calculations that I did above - about how in 2004 the Trinamool and the Congress would have won 13 seats if they had united -- run the risk of proving highly fallacious. Some observers will tell you that I have erred heavily on the side of caution when I say 13 seats. The figure could rise dramatically to 18, even 21 !

Anyway, no point venturing into the realm of the possible. Lets stick to facts.

Fact 1 - Delimitation is a factor

Fact 2 - The Nano has gone way from Singur

Fact 3 - The chemical hub has not come up at Nandigram. It may, at nearby Nayachar, but who knows.

The big questions: How will the Left's vote bank, rural Bengal, react to the most burning issue of all this election - should farmland be given over for factories? Does Bengal need industry? How badly does Bengal need industry? Do they believe it is possible to have industries without parting with farmland? Do they think the Nano's exit was disastrous or fortuitous? Do they think a chemical hub could have generated much-needed jobs or pollution that may have claimed lives?