Jangipur Bye-Election:: 18 Booths that Changed the Result!

ONLY 18 polling booths saved Congress candidate Abhijit Mukherjee to scrape through with a wafer-thin margin in Jangipur Lok Sabha bye-election in West Bengal. And, the results in these booths showed a unique feature, defying all logic and in total discrepancy with the overall pattern.

In Jangipur, Congress candidate defeated CPI(M) candidate Muzaffar Hossain by a margin of only 2536 votes. Congress candidate got 3,32,999 votes while CPI(M) candidate got 3,30,383 votes. The seat fell vacant after Pranab Mukherjee was elected President of India. In 2009, the senior Congress leader had won the seat with a margin of nearly 1,30,000 votes. The vote share of Congress came down from 54 per cent in 2009 to 39.01 per cent in 2012, a drop of nearly 15 per cent. CPI(M)’s vote share in this year’s election was 38.71 per cent. In other words, the President’s son Abhijit Mukherjee won the seat by a margin of only 0.30 per cent votes.

Another notable feature of the election was that BJP got more than 85,000 votes while two other parties, SDPI (24,691) and WPI (41,620) polled considerable votes. Though the elections took place after Trinamool Congress split from UPA at the centre and after Congress walked out of the state cabinet, the TMC decided not to contest. The formal explanation was ‘courtesy’ shown by Mamata Banerjee to Pranab Mukherjee. In the absence of TMC, the extraordinary rise of votes for BJP and other two political formations has attracted some attention in political quarters.

CPI(M) has taken a lead in four assembly constituencies while Congress in three. In 2011, Left Front won only one out of these seven assembly segments. 

All trends, however, took a U-turn in 18 polling booths in the two village panchayats of Giria Sekendra area under Raghunathganj assembly segments. This area has witnessed severe terror for last few months and most of CPI(M) activists had to flee. Left Front candidate could not enter this area during the campaign. In these booths, CPI(M) agents were not allowed to be present. Congress hoodlums captured the booths and freely voted for hours. The villagers were forced to remain outside the booths. The booth capturing was even recorded in TV footage.  Despite repeated requests, police came and stayed just for few minutes. It did not intervene effectively. The CPI(M) candidate had alerted the Election Commission much before about the possibility of booth capturing. But the state election office failed to ensure free and fair voting in these disturbed areas. The result showed that in these booths Congress candidate ‘polled’ 600 to 700 votes while CPI(M) got just 6 to 20 votes. In one such booth (in Patlatola Primary School, Booth no: 23) Congress candidate has got 679 votes out of total 685, while CPI(M) candidate has not got any vote at all. The dreaded criminals from Jharkhand were brought to terrorise the entire area. Congress candidate took a lead of more than 7000 votes from these 18 booths and thus saved the ‘prestige’ of himself and his father on whose name he fought the elections.

CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat termed the result of Jangipur as ‘technical victory’ of Congress. Biman Basu, Left Front chairman pointed towards drastic reduction of votes of Congress. It was because of the anti-people policies of the centre and non implementation of promises, he asserted. CPI(M) Murshidabad district secretary Mriganka Bhattacharya rightly concluded that although the result was formally clinched in favour of Congress through manipulations and terror in the 18 booths, they were morally defeated.

Voting Pattern in 18 Booths

Booth No.	Name of the booth	Polled vote	Abhijit Mukherjee	Muzaffar Hossain	Sudhangsu Biswas
17	Labanchoya Primary Schl. (Room-1)	346	316	11	14
18	Chandpur Primary Schl. (Room-1)	591	536	10	2
19	Labanchoya Co-operative Society	350	268	46	12
20	Momintola Primary Schl.	626	586	16	5
21	Momintola Madrasha	526	481	17	1
22	Sonarpara Primary Schl.	675	606	31	4
23	Patlatola Primary Schl.	685	679	0	0
24	Bhairabtola Primary Schl.	514	216	75	177
25	Bhairabtola Health centre	479	426	27	0
26	Bhairabtola paschim Primary Schl.	521	398	72	0
27	Lalkhandiyar R C H Bhaban	512	489	15	4
28	Sekendra G P Bhaban (Room-1)	614	533	49	6
33	Giriya Kishmat Primary Schl. (Room-1)	502	435	43	1
33A	Giriya Kishmat Primary Schl. (Room-2)	354	294	94	0
36	Imamnagar Primary School (Room-1)	296	207	65	4
36A	Imamnagar Primary School (Room-2)	538	459	70	1
37	Khejutola Primary School	495	429	35	2
40	Rameswarpur Primary School	628	462	112	8
	Total	9252	7820	788	241

UNEASY ALLIANCE?

Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay in Kolkata

FRONTLINE, Volume 28 - Issue 01 :: Jan. 01-14, 2011

THE Congress is on the horns of a dilemma vis-a-vis its relationship with the Trinamool Congress as West Bengal readies for the Assembly elections, which are to be held in six months. The Pradesh Congress is torn between conflicting views of two influential sections of its leadership. While one believes it is vital to maintain the electoral alliance with Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, which is the main opposition to the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government, the other group feels the alliance should not be at the expense of the “dignity” of the party, as remarked by general secretary Rahul Gandhi.

There is no denying the fact that the party's position in the State is weak. It has 19 seats in the 294-member Assembly and six out of 42 Lok Sabha seats. Its presence is noticeable in only three districts – Malda, Murshidabad and Uttar Dinajpur. It has scattered strongholds such as Rampurhat in Birbhum district, Asansol and Katwa in Bardhaman district, Kharagpur in Pashchim Medinipur district, Basirhat in North 24 Paraganas district and Khidirpur in Kolkata. However, according to Congress sources, even in these regions the party has been witnessing a steady erosion of its support base with the resurgence of the Trinamool Congress.

“Our main problem began when we had a tie-up with the Left parties at the Centre. We needed Left support at that time. The people in the State felt our opposition to the CPI(M) was not genuine,” senior Congress leader and former Pradesh Congress working president Pradip Bhattacharya told Frontline. It was also in 2006 and 2007, when the Congress was in power at the Centre with support from the Left, that the Trinamool emerged out of political wilderness with its agitation programmes against land acquisition for industries. It became a strong challenge to the Left Front. “Even though we were there in this movement right from the start, our association with the Left prevented us from gaining any real political advantage from it,” a Congress source said.

Although the Congress-Trinamool alliance can be euphemistically termed an uncomfortable one, a section of the Congress feels that the party's showing in the coming elections will be miserable if the alliance falls through. Since the party has been consistently losing members and leaders to the Trinamool, it is feared that there will be more defections if the alliance breaks. “Moreover, if we go it alone and our results are unsatisfactory, it will do enormous damage to the morale of our workers. But if we go ahead with the alliance, then we will survive and still have some seats for ourselves, and we can flourish again later,” Bhattacharya said.

This attitude, however, does not find favour with another section of the Congress, which feels it is tantamount to a “complete surrender” to the Trinamool. “The alliance is a must, but the benefits [seats] must be proportionately distributed. In the parliamentary election of 2009, we accepted their terms and took 14 seats – six that belonged to us, and eight difficult seats, which we lost. But we took it for the sake of the alliance. We have declared Mamata Banerjee as the alliance leader, now the Trinamool should also reciprocate. In the Assembly elections, will it be unfair to seek one-third of the 294 seats?” Pradesh Congress working president Manas Bhuniya asked.

Mamata's constant jibes at the Congress, referring to the latter as the “B Team” of the CPI(M), accusing the State leadership of being agents of the ruling party, and her unbending, autocratic attitude towards her “junior” partner, has been a constant source of irritation to the local Congress leadership. After the huge success in the Lok Sabha election, relations between the two parties soured so much that in the 2010 municipal elections, they decided to contest separately. The Trinamool recorded a thumping victory, and the Congress' tally was reduced by half. It won 10 wards in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation as against 20 in 2005.

Senior Trinamool leader and Union Minister of State for Urban Development Saugata Roy stated categorically that the party wished to remain in the Congress-led UPA at the Centre and also have an electoral alliance with the State Congress. “But if they want to have an alliance, they too must make some concessions to us, particularly in places where they are strong,” he told Frontline. Roy is confident that even if there is no electoral alliance, the Trinamool will win a majority in the Assembly elections. “We want the alliance in the interest of defeating the CPI(M) roundly. But fences have not been mended since the civic elections, and the relations continue to be strained, Roy admits. The two partners “continue to talk to each other through statements made to the media”.

According to veteran Congress leader Subrata Mukherjee, who recently joined the Trinamool, the Congress stands to lose heavily if there is no alliance, as the dedicated anti-Left votes would then be diverted to the Trinamool. “The Congress at present is going through a leadership crisis. Most of its top leaders like Somen [Mitra], Saugata [Roy], myself have left it. The only one left is Priya [Priyaranjan Dasmunshi], who is non-functional because of ill-health. The majority of its dedicated workers have joined the Trinamool, and more will join if there is no alliance,” he told Frontline.

Senior CPI(M) leader Mohammad Salim, though in agreement with Mukherjee's views on the Congress' leadership crisis, feels that the party will be better off without an alliance with the Trinamool. “Essentially, Trinamool's gain is from the Congress, not from the Left. The more the Congress goes along with the Trinamool, the more it stands to lose. The Trinamool's strength lies in the disintegration of the Congress,” he said. However, there are those in the Left who feel that a Congress-Trinamool alliance will give the Left Front a tough fight.

The views about the shifting of votes from the Congress to the Trinamool is to be viewed in the light of an electoral assessment made by some senior Congress men, who told Frontline that in the absence of an alliance, the Congress may stand to lose at least 5-10 per cent of the anti-Left votes. How this percentage will be translated into the number of seats lost by the anti-Left forces taken together, especially in marginal constituencies, is anybody's guess.

SLANDEROUS LIES OF CONGRESS AGAINST LEFT FRONT GOVERNMENT AND REAL FACTS

By Dr. Asim Kumar Dasgupta

On the eve of the forthcoming parliamentary elections on 5th April, 2009 the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on behalf of the Congress Party packaged baseless lies as a “report card” against the Left Front Government in West Bengal. On the 6th of April 2009, the State Left Front Chairman and Secretary of CPI(M) State Committee Biman Basu refuted the so called facts and canards in detail. However, I am once again putting together a comprehensive rejoinder to the numerous false charges in their write-up.

Slander 1: There has been no development in education during the tenure of the Left Front Government. The percentage of drop-outs in West Bengal is 82.7% which is way above the national average, and the quality of school education in the state is very bad, etc.

Real Fact: During the tenure of the Left Front Government special priority has been given to spread access, quality and continuity in education starting from the primary level upwards. This effort is not only limited in admitting children to schools, but emphasis is also given to involving women self-help groups in mid-day meal scheme in all schools and reduce the tendency to drop out. Simultaneously attention is given to activities of school-wise mother-teacher committees, village-based education committees and school inspectors to improve the quality of education. As a result according to the latest information from NUEPA (2007), the drop-out rate in primary schools of West Bengal has gone down to 8.56% which is in fact less than the national average of 9.36%. From the same source, we learn that at the junior high school level also this rate has gone further down to 7.34%. According to the last available state-wise information published by NCERT (2005), the students of West Bengal are at the top in the nation in overall qualitative evaluation of all the subjects after the completion of fifth standard in school.

The Congress “Report” is falsely critical of the education system under Left rule; and also in effect insults the honourable teachers and the students of West Bengal while real facts are showing diametrically opposite scenario.

Slander 2: The Left Front Government has failed to provide safe drinking water to the inhabitants of the state. Using information from the National Family-wise Health Survey (2005-06) it states that while safe drinking water is provided to 84.2% and 78.4% families in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra respectively, while in West Bengal only 27.9% families have access to safe drinking water.

Real Fact: The sample survey which has been referred to in this “Report” uses a very small sample for West Bengal. While the number of total families in West Bengal is around 2.29 Crore (1.34 Crore in rural area and 0.45 Crore in urban areas), this survey takes a sample size of 5992 families, which is a meager 0.03% of the total. In sharp contrast, according to the survey conducted by the State Government in which complete information from 1.34 Crore families in 40000 villages and around 0.40 Crore families in urban areas was collected, 90.5% rural families and 96.8% urban families have access to safe drinking water. Therefore here too the actual position is are just the opposite of what has been projected in the “Report.”

However, the Left Front Government feels that there is still some more scope for improvement and targets have already been fixed to make safe drinking water available to 100% families in urban and rural areas of the state. Simultaneously steps have been taken to supervise and maintain all water projects through panchayats and municipal corporations.

Slander 3: In the area of public health nothing much has been done during the Left Front rule because the average Body Mass Index of women in West Bengal is less than the national average in comparison and so on.

Real Fact: Information on women’s health is taken from the National Family-wise Sample Survey which has a serious statistical problem of very small sample size, as mentioned earlier. According to the latest round of this survey (2005-06), as far as BMI is concerned 51.8% women in this country have normal BMI while in West Bengal this ratio stands at 49.6%. What this so called “Report” forgets to mention is that the same source of information reveals data lower than West Bengal in some other major and more affluent and developed states like Maharashtra (49.3%), Karnataka (49.2%) and Gujarat (47.0%). Moreover, according to the latest report of FAO (2008) special mention has been made of India in the area of food insecurity and problems of women’s health; and more specific and serious concerns are expressed regarding some other states like Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Orissa and Maharashtra. We feel instead of singling out a particular state by using this problem to make vulgar political points it is much more desirable to find a humane acceptable way towards solution to this problem through discussions with all the states in the country.

The progress of public healthcare in a state is ideally measured by looking at how rapidly a reduction in overall mortality rate and child mortality rate has been achieved and what has been the role of the state government in that reduction. The point to be noted here is that while only 40% patients get the opportunity to be treated in a government hospital nationally, in West Bengal 73% of the total patients get treatment in government hospitals. In the Left Front era this welfare role of the state government has been institutionalized and re-enforced; and the endeavour to provide decentralized preventive healthcare and treatment through panchayats and municipal corporations adds more strength to this emphasis, particularly on the basis of expansion of healthcare by employing more health workers. As a result of all these the latest published data of the central government (Source: SRS survey, 2007) show that mortality rate per thousand has gone down from 10.9 in 1980 to 6.3 now, which is much lower than national average of 7.4. Incidentally among the major states West Bengal has the lowest mortality rate and Kerala stands just after West Bengal at 6.4. Child mortality rate per thousand has also gone down from 91 in 1980 to 37 currently, which is lower than the national average (57) and fourth among the major states after Kerala (14), Tamil Nadu (36) and Maharashtra (37). Here one outstanding fact is that the child mortality rate decreased to even below 10 in Kolkata and the 41 adjacent municipal areas due to the involvement of the municipal corporations in the decentralized healthcare system. Moreover, this rate is even lower than the child mortality rate in municipal areas of Kerala.

If one takes all this information together the real picture becomes clear that West Bengal has come up at the top level in the country in public healthcare, but this kind of an intellectually and politically honest and principled approach would have highlighted the successes of the Left Front Government. As a result, the authors of this report and their allies would have been in a politically uncomfortable situation; and that is precisely why they created a huge gap between the reality and their slander to utilize this pack of lies politically.

Slander 4: During the Left Front Government’s tenure poverty and hunger have become significant in West Bengal. Murshidabad is the poorest district in the country and so on.

Real Fact: Information provided by the Planning Commission is the most acceptable source for comparing state-wise figures for population below the poverty line in our country. According to those statistics, during Congress rule in West Bengal in 1973-74 the percentage of population below poverty line was 63.43%, which was much higher than the national average of 54.88%. This was the intensity of poverty in the state during Congress rule. In contrast, during Left Front tenure using land reform as the basis and implementing alternative policies the percentage of population below poverty line rapidly decreased. The same Planning Commission’s latest information reveals that in the year 2004-05 this figure has come down to 20.6% which is less than national average of 21.6% unlike the Congress-ruled era in the State. Therefore, the scenario has transformed in favour of common people compared to the dismal situation during Congress government.

After knowing this what do the authors of this slander do and where can they find some faults? They incoherently quote from an article written by Dreze and Deaton (EPW, 14th February, 2009) and say that the percentage of population without adequate food intake is 11.7% which is higher than national average of 2.5%. The architects of this slanderous report either tried to exploit this article or they could not find the time to read it fully, or else they have deliberately hidden the facts. Page 45 of this article clearly mentions that these ratios were derived from a survey whose questionnaire was changed in between to a more controversial and questionable one. In the changed methodology the surveyors were instructed to write down the answers by asking questions based on completely psychological perceptions instead of asking objective and scientific questions. This methodology resulted in varied and unexplainable sets of answers from different states, and hence the authors cautioned that using this set of information may give rise to suspicious results for a state-wise comparison. Without reading this, or may be by hiding this, the authors of the Congress Report utilized this unreliable information.

That is not all. The authors forgot that the last National Sample Survey on state-wise information of food intake was published in that very year of 2004-05 based on solid objective and material information(61st round). That survey clearly spells out that in rural West Bengal per capita calorie intake is 2070 which is not only more than the national average of 2047 but also it is higher than Maharashtra (1933), Gujarat (1929), Karnataka (1845) and Tamil Nadu (1842).

West Bengal government undertook a survey in each village of each district which shows that at present the percentage of population not getting adequate food is only 3.59%. If the urban data is added to this then this ratio will go below 2.5% for the entire West Bengal. Therefore once again real facts and slander propagated as facts are absolutely different even in the matter of food intake.

The Congress report states that Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) has conducted a survey which shows that 56% of Murshidabad district’s population lives in abject poverty and this district is the poorest district in the country. We don’t know about any such survey conducted by ISI, but according to the family and district-wise survey conducted by the state government the population living in abject poverty in Murshidabad is 4.3% (not 56% as mentioned in Congress Report), and as far as this ratio is concerned Murshidabad is better than some of the districts in West Bengal itself.

However, the main reason for economic hardship of the common people of Murshidabad is the erosion of soil in the banks of the Ganga-Padma river. Since this erosion takes place along the international border the state government repeatedly petitioned the central government to treat the problem of erosion in the banks of Ganga-Padma as a crucial national level issue and the central government take adequate responsibility to solve this problem. In spite of this, the central government under both the Congress rule and the NDA rule (of which Trinamool Congress was a constituent) did not pay any attention to this legitimate demand of the people of Murshidabad. So, the majority (around Rs. 400 Crore) of the total money spent (Rs. 717.89 Crore) on preventing this erosion from 1977-78 to 2008-09 was done by the Left Front Government of West Bengal on its own.

Dr. Asim Kumar Dasgupta is finance minister of West Bengal government