Minority vote to play crucial role in West Bengal

TMC feels the more BJP campaigns, the greater will Muslim votes be polarised in its favour.

With the Left-Congress alliance apparently working at the grassroots, it might not be a cakewalk for the Trinamul Congress in the West Bengal polls. Dominating in 102 Assembly constituencies, Muslims are expected to play a crucial role, and with the possibility of the minority vote bank heading for a two-way split (between TMC and the Left-Congress), the result could be a tantalisingly close affair. The TMC believes that the more the BJP campaigns in the state, the greater will Muslim votes be polarised in its favour. Lagging far behind in the electoral race, the BJP might open its account for the first time in West Bengal.

There’s a tug-of-war between the Trinamul and the Left-Congress alliance over the Muslim votes in the state. Bengal records the second-highest population of Muslims in the country who, once the traditional vote bank of the Left, switched over to the Trinamul in the last Assembly elections.

Sensing that the Muslim vote bank holds the key, Ms Banerjee kicked off her election campaign from Malda, which recently witness-ed a communal flare-up. The Muslim-dominated districts in the state are Malda, Murshidabad, North Dinajpur, South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas, Nadia and Birbhum.

During the campaign, the Trinamul Congress has been brandishing its so-called welfare schemes for the minorities, some of which include free cycles to girls studying in madrasas, allowances and stipends for imams, banning telecast of a drama series by controversial author Taslima Nasreen, and reservation for Muslim OBCs. To counter Ms Banerjee, the Left-Congress alliance was highlighting a report by Social Network for Assistance to People (SNAP) and Guidance Guild, “Status of the Muslims in Bengal —2014”, which claimed that the plight of the Muslims has not improved under Ms Banerjee’s government. It reported that nearly 80 per cent of the rural Muslim households still live on Rs 5,000 a month, only one per cent of public sector jobs are with Muslims, and 15 per cent of their children between the ages of six and 14 years have no access to education. It may be recalled that the Sachar Committee report had played a key role in ending over three decades of Left rule in Bengal and had named West Bengal as one of te worst states for Muslims to live in.

The TMC leaders claim that the “more the BJP campaigns, the better it will be for the outfit”. They argue that extensive BJP campaigns in the state will polarise the Muslims in favour of the Trinamul Congress. Speculation was rife that the TMC had “encouraged the RSS’ rise in the state to polarise the minority vote bank in its favour”. State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had alleged that “RSS shakhas have grown in an unprecedented manner in Bengal during the TMC regime”.

The importance of the Muslim vote bank in Bengal’s electoral politics is evident from the records, which clearly show that in the 2006 Assembly polls the Left bagged 56 per cent of the minority vote and won 233 of the 294 seats. The reverse was witnessed in the 2011 state elections where the Trinamul Congress managed to secure 50 per cent of the Muslim vote and decimated the Left.