GP results rub it in (http://thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=1&theme=&usrsess=1&id=205233)
Statesman News Service
KOLKATA, May 23: For the first time since the Left Front introduced the panchayati raj system in the state in 1978, it lost control of nearly 50 per cent of the gram panchayats this time, signifying that nearly half of rural Bengal has turned its face away from the Marxist-led regime.
A clear picture emerged today as results of the 3,220 gram panchayats were declared. The LF won 1,585 GPs while the Opposition dramatically surged ahead notching up a victory in 1,498 GPs. The results in 137 GPs have been either a tie or hung.
The LF had won 2,303 GPs in the 2003 elections routing the Opposition which managed to bag only 897 GPs, whereas the number of GPs where the results were a tie or hung was only 20. The LF's lowest tally of GPs before was 56 per cent in 1998 and the highest 72 per cent in 1988. Its share ranged between 56 and 70 per cent during the six consecutive terms that it held sway over the panchayats.
The comfort that the CPI-M drew from its victory in 13 of the 17 Zilla Parishads when the results first started pouring in two days back, was eroded by serious worries yesterday when the Opposition won 89 panchayat samities against the LF tally of 189, showing that the ruling combine's grip on the rural vote bank was loosening.
But today, the illusory success in the ZPs turned into a nightmare with the GP results making it clear that nearly half the political space in rural Bengal ~ which has hitherto been the LF's mainstay ~ has been captured by the Opposition. The results sent such shock-waves down the spine of the CPI-M that its state leadership immediately started wooing the junior partners whom it had treated shabbily and insolently during the run-up to the poll.
State industries minister Mr Nirupam Sen was summoned to Alimuddin Street in the afternoon. It was the duo of Mr Sen and the chief minister who were the chief architects of the skewed industrialisation policy that has proved the LF's undoing in the rural poll.
The CPI-M state secretary and LF chairman, Mr Biman Bose, had even taunted that the junior partners saying that it was misplaced confidence that was spurring them.to seek a greater share of seats. But after the results were out, he held bilateral talks with leaders of the CPI and the Forward Bloc to soothe frayed nerve. The Left Front will review results on 27 May. (two paragraphs excluded)
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Editorial
Foundational shock (http://thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=205251)
Verdict with profound implications
The verdict is irrevocable, the shock numbing, and the jolt decidedly more severe than what it was after the assembly election of 2001. Very uniquely the outcome has been a double whammy; the Zilla Parishad result is a statement against the land acquisition for industry and murderous state-sponsored violence. In the panchayat samities and gram panchayats, the voter has raised his voice against the decrepit panchayati raj and such specifics as the collapse of the rationing system, the mishandling of the avian flu and the failure of the NREGA. Aside from bread and butter issues, it is the widening rift between the CPI-M and its partners that has done the party in, notably in the second and third tiers. The verdict is a testament to the measure of opposition unity at the grassroots level. In the net, the leadership's reluctance to comment is indication enough that the party and the government have been shaken to the foundations.
Decidedly more shocking for the Left has been the loss of the panchayat samities in as many as seven districts of South Bengal. This functionally critical tier goes out of Left control in close to half of the 17 districts. A vast swathe of South Bengal had borne the brunt of the rationing collapse and food riots last September. More recently these districts were afflicted by the avian flu that has ruined the poultries, a thriving segment of the rural economy.
Nandigram has rejected the Left exactly six months after its recapture. The outcome has had its impact on the industrial nerve-centre of Haldia as well and the likes of Lakshman Seth ought now to be headed for the political dump. Interlinked with land has been the communal factor with Muslims constituting an estimated 60 per cent of Nandigram's peasantry. The warning of a vote-bank erosion was sufficiently glaring as early as January 2007, yet a bullheaded party responded with counter-mobilisation of its cadres and with devastating effect.
As in East Midnapore, the standoffish arrogance that marked the acquisition of land in Singur is in shreds with the CPI-M losing all three Zilla Parishads to the Trinamul. The vote against the CPI-M in South 24-Parganas is the villagers' response to the invitation to the Salim Group of Indonesia to invest without bothering to examine the repercussion of land acquisition despite the alert sounded by the party's minister, Abdur Rezaak Mollah. Indeed, the Salim projects in the road sector and the increasing opposition to the acquisition notices have had an impact on North 24-Parganas as well where the CPI-M has won by a margin of three seats. Significantly, the proposed industrialisation of West Midnapore, Burdwan, Bankura and Purulia has had no impact on the fortunes of the party primarily owing to the arid nature of the soil.
No election since 1977 has yielded a verdict with such profound implications for the structure of rural Bengal ~ political, social and economic. Yet it would be premature to conclude in the manner of Mamata Banerjee that this is the "beginning of the end of the CPI-M", unless we take the philosophical view that every end is certain to have a beginning. That said, she has been prescient enough to realise the dichotomy of opposition-controlled panchayat samities and gram panchayats functioning under CPI-M Zilla Parishads in 13 of the 17 districts. __._,_.___
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