Kolkata Civic Polls: What Candidate Lists Reveal About Each Party's Strategy

While the Left have gone with young guns, the BJP have set aside big names for booth level party workers

Kolkata Civic Polls: Candidate’s List Feature Women Galore, and Kin of MLAs

(Photo: Debayan Dutta / The Quint)

Preparations for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections slated for 19 December, are in full swing. While the Trinamool Congress is looking to maintain its dominance from the Assembly elections, the BJP, Left and Congress will try to recover lost ground.

It is in line with this plan that each party have selected their candidates for the polls, in their first list of candidates.

The KMC has been run by the Trinamool since 2010, a year before it came to power in the state. However, the KMC elections have not been held since May 2015. That year, TMC won 114 out of the 144 wards.

The KMC elections which were due to be held in April-May 2020 was postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation.

Since then, all civic bodies in the state have been run by a state-appointed 14-member board of administrators, with outgoing mayor Firhad Hakim at its helm. The Kolkata High Court granted the board an extension in July 2020, after its five-year term ended on 7 May 2020.

This year’s candidate list from all the four parties has seen high number of women being given tickets. While the Left have gone with a strategy similar to their Assembly polls, the BJP have set aside big names to give way for booth level party workers.

Trinamool Congress: Family Ties and MLAs

The Trinamool Congress has given tickets to the kin of several party leaders for the upcoming polls, which include West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s sister-in-law Kajari Banerjee and Tanima Chatterjee, the sister of late Subrata Chatterjee.

Other notable relatives getting tickets include Puja Panja, the daughter of minister Shashi Panja, Kakoli Sen, the wife of Shantanu Sen, and Sourav Basu, the son of minister Chandrima Bhattacharya.

While the BJP has accused the TMC of being a ‘family-run party’, the latter seems to rewarding loyalists.

What’s surprising in the list are the names of six MLAs, and one sitting MP, including the outgoing mayor Firhad Hakim. This is a deviation from the “One Person, One Post” principle.

No name has been finalised on who will be the mayoral candidate. The TMC leadership has said that a decision will be made after the poll results.

The Trinamool has gone strong on women candidates as it has nominated 64 (45 percent) women candidates out of the 142 candidates that have been declared. They have also fielded 23 candidates from the Muslim community and dropped 39 councilors.

BJP: Stardom Gives Way to Grassroot Leaders

The BJP has opted for more grassroot and booth level workers instead of star-studded celebrities for the KMC polls, unlike their Assembly elections strategy.

In a first and highest ever by the BJP in any local body polls in Bengal, they have fielded nine Muslim candidates which include five women. The five women have been fielded in Kolkata port and Metaibruz, areas with a significant Muslim population.

The saffron brigade has nominated a total of 50 women.

BJP state vice-president Pratap Bandopadhyay said, “The party wanted to field both old-timers and new faces, after taking into consideration their track record and support base.”

We have fielded 50 women and 48 young people. There are school teachers, professors, doctors apart from an ex-colonel and five advocates on the list. The party chose the ones who have a clean image and proven track record.

Pratap Bandopadhyay, State BJP Vice-President

Left: Red Volunteers and Similar Strategy

The CPI-M stuck to their 2021 Assembly polls strategy of fielding young candidates for the KMC polls. Out of the 114 candidates that have been selected, 70 percent are below 50 years of age.

The 114 candidates mostly include Red Vounteers who are said to have been active in relief work when the second COVID wave hit the state. 57 of the 114 candidates are women.

Unlike the Assembly elections, the Left and the Congress will be contesting the elections separately. The Left has spared 15-16 seats for the ISF, Congress and other like-minded parties.

Congress: Battling Embarrassment 

The Congress has already had its share of embarrassment after they had to drop Partha Mitra from ward number 8, after he said that he was “with the TMC”.

The party has so far announced candidates for 95 out of 144 wards, and will be fighting alone. The party will also extend its support to independent candidates in 22-25 seats.

However, several local leaders are not happy with the party’s choice of candidates and had staged a protest at the state Congress headquarters at Bidhan Bhawan. Protestors from from wards 64 and 80 threatened suicide demanding that the respective candidates be changed.