Bengal Bypolls: Celebration Songs and Warning Bells for the Trinamool Congress

Many believe that the TMC is at the peak of its power in Bengal. But there’s more than meets the eye.

(Photo: Debayan Dutta / The Quint)

The Trinamool Congress has won the recently concluded by-polls for the Asansol Lok Sabha seat and the Ballygunge Assembly seat. Both seats have been won by recent inductees into the TMC – Shatrughan Sinha and Babul Supriyo respectively.

The Asansol seat has been won by Shatrughan Sinha, which was vacated by Babul Supriyo after he was dropped from the Modi cabinet post the rejig. After the 2021 Assembly elections, Supriyo switched over to TMC from the BJP.

Whereas the Ballygunge Vidhan Sabha seat went to polls after veteran TMC leader and MLA Subrata Mukherjee passed away in 2021, leaving that seat empty.

Many experts believe that the TMC is at the peak of its power and electoral dominance in Bengal. But there’s a little more to it than meets the eye.

TMC's Electoral Dominance and National Aspirations

Shatrughan Sinha winning the Asansol Lok Sabha seat in 2022 is a historic win for the Trinamool Congress for more reasons than one.

For starters, this is the first time in the history of the party that they have won that Lok Sabha seat. Former Union Minister and BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha won against BJP MLA Agnimitra Paul by a massive margin of 3,03,209 votes. Sinha won 6,56,358 votes while Paul got 3,53,149 votes. This has also brought down the BJP’s tally of Lok Sabha seats in Bengal to 17.

Asansol has been a BJP bastion since 2014. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, then BJP candidate Supriyo had won by 1.97 lakh votes, defeating TMC’s Moon Moon Sen and securing a vote share of 51.5% against TMC’s 35.19%.

In the 2021 Assembly elections, the TMC improved its tally a bit to get a 46.21% vote share, beating the BJP’s 41.89%. However, this time around the TMC has secured a 56.5% vote share against the BJP’s 30.4%. The CPIM meanwhile has been consistent at 7%.

This has not only revived Sinha’s political career since his loss in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Patna Sahib but has also given a major boost to TMC’s national aspirations. Sinha’s win is another step for the TMC to shed its ‘Bengali sub-nationalism' image, which has been a major obstacle in their national expansion plans.

Sinha’s win has also helped Serampore TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee’s political career after he recently found himself in deep waters over his comments on TMC General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee. Kalyan Banerjee has been instrumental in campaigning for Sinha in Asansol, and a certain amount of credit behind the win is due to him.

TMC Shouldn't Take Things for Granted

Babul Supriyo bagged around 50% of votes and defeated Left Front candidate Saira Shah Halim who had secured 30% votes. TMC’s vote share went down from 70% in the 2021 Assembly polls to 50%, while the CPIM’s went up from 6% to 30%.

This can be attributed to a combination of several factors. The biggest factor behind this can be poor choice of candidate selection where Supriyo, who has previously been accused of provoking communal sentiments in Asansol which led to a riot during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, was given a ticket. During the riots, an Imam’s son was killed.

TMC’s selection of Supriyo as a candidate had invited backlash from several groups including the West Bengal Imams association. There was even a campaign named ‘No Vote to Babul’ organized by the same activists and independent organizations who were also behind the ‘No Vote to BJP campaign’.

However, sources have told The Quint that many of the activists who were initially part of the protests had gradually changed their stance right before the day of the vote. One might very well argue that Supriyo won because most voters voted in Mamata Banerjee’s name.

Another reason behind the dip is simply the fact that a Babul Supriyo is not Subrata Mukherjee.

But before one draws a conclusion that Muslims are leaving Mamata’s side, it must also be considered that the elections were held on during the month of Ramzan when many Muslims are fasting.

This has led to a lower voter turnout of just 41% in Ballygunge which is low even by Bengal’s by-poll standards.

A breakdown of the poll figures also showed that the CPIM won wards 64 and 65 by defeating the TMC.

This doesn’t mean that the TMC take things for granted and should seriously introspect their candidature in the future. If anything, Ballygunge should be a wake-up call for a party that plans to take on the BJP in the Centre in 2024.

Red Alert for Opposition Space

There’s nothing surprising anymore in the opposition space in Bengal as the principal opposition party, the BJP still hasn’t recovered from their internal conflicts and organizational failures. There seems to be a further erosion of the saffron party’s support base in the state.

The party not only lost a big bastion in Asansol, but also came third in Ballygunge.

This erosion directly benefits the CPIM. BJP’s loss in vote share indicates a direct relation to CPIM’s rise in vote share. However, it might be too early to call this the resurgence of the Left as by now it is clear that the opposition votes usually swing between the CPIM and the BJP depending on which party or candidate seems promising.

However, with every win, the opposition space in Bengal is dwindling, as the TMC heads for total dominance in the state.

But the real loser in this scenario is the Congress who have been practically wiped out over the course of the last three elections.