SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA
ARCHIVES

T V R Shenoy

Jyoti Basu may find himself paying the price for pursuing double standards in Delhi and Calcutta

On February 27, a team from the Ramakrishna Mission went with relief materials to cyclone-struck Midnapore. There, much to their surprise, they were summarily prevented from going ahead by the local powers-that-be.

"Leave everything that you brought at the party office!," was the brusque command. It took intercession at the highest levels in Calcutta before the stunned missionaries got permission to proceed.

I leave it to you to ponder over the implications of such 'secularism' running unchecked. What intrigues me right now is another burning question: why is the Left Front in such an obscene hurry to grab credit for itself while denying it to others?

The comrades are preparing for an event that is just a little over seven weeks away -- the panchayat polls in West Bengal are scheduled for May 31. The rural areas in the state are popularly held to be Communist citadels. But in 1998 an attempt is finally being made to liberate the villages of Bengal from the Marxist stranglehold.

The spearhead of this struggle is, of course, Mamata Bannerjee. She demonstrated her power in Calcutta quite dramatically in the General Election. But the CPI-M's rule won't be truly challenged until the battle is taken to the villages.

The Trinamul Congress chief is making her moves as fast as she can. The existing understanding with the BJP shall be strengthened as a matter of course. Hopefully, there won't be any more problems as there were in the Lok Sabha poll when BJP and Trinamul Congress candidates cut into each other's votes in Midnapore. (Interestingly enough, the BJP got more votes.)

Attempts are also being made to mop up whatever remains of the old Congress votebank. As I pointed out two weeks ago, the combined total is just a little ahead of the Marxist tally if we go by the Lok Sabha results. This task has been made easier by the sight of the CPI-M and the Congress cuddling together in Delhi during the vote of confidence.

Such scenes demonstrate the truth of Mamata Bannerjee's jibe that there is essentially no difference between Congressmen and Communists in Bengal. Whether the Congress is 'the CPI-M's B-team in Bengal' or the Communists are Sonia Gandhi's B-team in Delhi is merely a matter of detail.

But what I find truly fascinating is the new entrant willing to join hands with the BJP-Trinamul Congress alliance -- none other than the Indian Union Muslim League! Granted, the League really doesn't have much of a presence in West Bengal. But in a close fight, every vote counts.

There is yet another significance to the League's presence. It is yet another nail in the coffin of the old myth that the BJP is 'anti-Muslim' by nature. (But I am willing to wager the Communists will say it is simply a case of 'communal elements' coming together, the tired excuse used in Punjab today.)

I don't know whether the leaders involved know it, but there is an uncanny historical precedent in Bengal for such an alliance. In 1941, the Muslim League's Fazlul Haq got tired of Jinnah's bullying. He broke the local unit of the Muslim League to form a ministry. To do so, Haq received help from two famous people.

The first was Sarat Chandra Bose, Netaji's elder brother and, more to the point, the man who had rebelled against the then Congress high command. The second was none other than Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, future founder-president of the Jan Sangh. Is history about to repeat itself?

If so, there is one major difference. In 1941, Delhi tried its best to break up the alliance in Bengal. Today, the Union government is headed by a man who entered politics as Dr Mookerjee's disciple.

Mamata Bannerjee has invited the prime minister to come down and address a meeting or two in Bengal before the local body election. She is even asking for the Budget to be postponed. That last request may not be feasible, but a possible compromise is being discussed -- presentation of the Budget in the third week of May, but voting only in June.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee succeeded in winning a vote of confidence in Delhi in the face of a Congress-CPI-M alliance. Eight weeks later, Jyoti Basu faces another vote of confidence -- in the villages of Bengal. And he may find himself paying the price for pursuing double standards in Delhi and Calcutta.

How readers reacted to T V R Shenoy's recent columns

T V R Shenoy