Who will be the next CM of West Bengal?

Who will be the next CM of West Bengal?

By Deepak Parvatiyar

April 2, 2016

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As her rivals fail in trading options, it is the irrepressible Mamata Banerjee versus all in West Bengal these elections. As of now, she rides high on favourable opinion poll predictions about her return as the chief minister irrespective of the various scams and serious corruption charges that her government and party as well —the Trinamool Congress  — are embroiled with. Not to be perturbed with the recent sting operation showing her party’s members of Parliament purportedly involved in accepting bribes, the long-standing Saradha Scam, where her government faces the heat from all corners, or even the poll-eve collapse of an incomplete flyover right in the heart of the busy state capital that cost many lives, the maverick Didi banks on her personal charisma and seems least bothered about the controversies surrounding her government, and the new permutation in the Opposition camps.
The maverick Didi knows she and she alone has the magic wand to sail through all these crises and romp home for her second term in office. Thus she had no compunction when she declared emphatically at an election rally in Jalpaigudi that nobody else mattered as “Mamata Banerjee is the candidate in all 294 seats”.

Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front yet project its CM candidate

In face of the clout that Mamata wields in West Bengal politics today, her main rival, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front has refrained from projecting its CM candidate thus far. Will it still bank on veteran Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who Mamata had replaced in 2011, in case the Left manages to defeat the TMC, could be anyone’s guess. After all, despite opting to be dropped from the CPI-M politburo and despite being inactive for quite some time since his defeat in 2011, Bhattacharjee, of late, has been one of the leading architects of a Left-Congress tie-up in West Bengal. After all, it was he who had appealed to the Congress to join hands with the Left Front at a meeting in Singur on 16 January this year! This time the CPI(M) though  has fielded CPM state secretariat member and party’s South 24-Parganas secretary Dr. Sujan Chakrabarty — a known young face in Bengal politics, from Bhattacharjee’s home constituency, Jadavpur. (Despite Bhattacharjee’s shocking defeat in 2011, Jadavpur remains crucial to CPI –M as the party was leading from this assembly segment in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls). Incidentally, Bhattacharjee had reportedly wanted CPI-M state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra to contest from Jadavpur — on grounds that Mishra was an “accepted Left face to lead the battle from the front”. As per the tradition, usually a party state secretary of CPI-M remains away from contesting state elections, but Bhattacharjee’s backing does make Mishra a formidable CM candidate in case the Left wins.

Congress Party reaches out to the Left Front

The fast changing political equations in the state has seen the Congress Party reaching out to the Left Front to forge an “understanding” to defeat the Trinamool Congress. Incidentally, in the last state assembly elections in 2011, the Congress Party had allied with the TMC, and won 42 of the 65 seats that it had contested then to oust the CPI(M)-led Left Front after over 34 years in power.
Much though depends on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s show at the hustings. West Bengal had always remained a pipe dream for the Right brigade till in the last general elections, it could make significant inroads and polled 18 per cent votes – a quantum jump from mere 4 per cent in 2011 assembly elections. However, its fortunes has dipped in the state ever since. It could not win a single civic body in the state in 2015 and also lost the Bongaon Lok Sabha seat in the by poll that year. The party has since then revamped its entire state unit. Still it is short of confidence in projecting any CM face. Can its newly appointed state unit president, Dilip Ghosh, do the impossible for the party? If so, he can well be the next CM. But at the moment he needs to win his own election from Kharagpur Sadar where he is pitted against nonagenarian Gyan Singh Sohanpal of the Congress who has never lost the seat since 1982.
Further, given the clout that Mamata wields, in case she gets defeated in her constituency, can her victor emerge as the next CM. The Congress has fielded Former Union Minister Deepa Dasmunsi against Mamata from Bhabanipur. But can she be acceptable to the Left if she defeats Didi? The BJP has fielded fifty-five year old Chandra Kumar Bose – the grand nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose against the sitting CM. But in case he wins against Mamata, will his party (which he joined only in January this year) get the numbers to make him the CM? Last but not the least, can Didi be defeated at all? Wait and watch.

- See more at: http://www.elections.in/blog/who-will-be-the-next-cm-of-west-bengal/#sthash.IhmRETNs.dpuf