BJP gains ground in rural Bengal -Panchayat poll analysis

Source:www.organiser.org
Author: Ranjit Roy

Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal is steadily gaining ground in
rural areas. In recently concluded Panchayat elections the party
captured two Zilla Parishad seats in Malda and Birbhum. In addition,
the party has wrested 184 seats in Panchayat Samitis and another 1,271
Gram Panchayat seats mostly from the ruling CPM.

The results of the seventh Panchayat elections in the state
have clearly showed that the BJP has its support base in all the 17
districts of West Bengal. However, success of the Opposition in rural
Bengal against the ruling CPM is only the beginning of a long bitter
tussle to end the misrule of the communists in the state. True, there
will be polling in six or seven municipalities on June 29. But the real
trial of strength will be witnessed only in the Lok Sabha poll
scheduled to be held early next year. No individual political party has
organisational network to match the CPM’s time-tested election
machinery in the state. But if major Opposition parties are united
together to fight against the Left in 1:1 formula in order to prevent
division of anti-Left votes then it is possible to defeat Left
candidates in majority Lok Sabha seats. The effectiveness of this
formula has been proved in the recent Panchayat elections as all
conscious Opposition candidates have won in Gram Panchayat poll. There
was no conscious candidate in Zilla Parishads and in most Panchayat
Samitis thanks to Mamata Banerjee’s dictum, “My party Trinamul Congress
will go alone in Panchayat elections. We shall never forge an alliance
with the BJP as well as Congress. My party has strength to defeat the
CPM.”

West Bengal BJP’s success in 2008 Panchayat elections

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