Decrypting the message from Howrah

IN EARLY JUNE by-election results from Bihar and Gujarat took a large slice of news coverage. Relatively under-analysed was the Howrah Lok Sabha constituency by-election in West Bengal. The Trinamool Congress retained the seat by a reduced margin, beating the CPM candidate by 27,000 votes. The Congress, which had supported the Trinamool in 2009 but put up a spoiler nominee this time, walked away with 10 per cent of the electorate and about 96,000 votes. To be fair, it was a close call. The BJP has pockets of influence in Howrah, an industrial, urban district just across the river from Kolkata. It did not put up a candidate. As even senior Trinamool functionaries admitted, the BJP could have pulled in “at least 30,000 votes”. No doubt not all of these would have come at the expense of Trinamool. The Congress would almost certainly have lost some of its eventual voters to the BJP. Nevertheless, what was in the end a conclusive victory for Prasun Banerjee—the former football star who is Trinamool’s newest MP— could well have been a close call. What does this by-election result tell us of Mamata Banerjee’s political situation? A detailed look at the Howrah verdict would suggest Trinamool has lost votes in the urban areas, and declined from its maximalist peak in its south Bengal bastions in 2009 and 2011. However it was so far ahead of the CPM in urban seats in and around Kolkata that a marginal decline in vote share makes little difference. In the one rural segment of the constituency, Trinamool has done well, indicating it is still the rising force in rural Bengal, and still seen as the new energy that can displace an old order defined by the CPM. Finally, in one assembly segment dominated by Muslims, Trinamool led by about 10,000 votes. Howrah is only one seat. It is hardly representative of all of Bengal. Even so, it is all we have with us and all Ms Banerjee has with her. What do the numbers add up to? What do they foretell, if anything at all? In 2009, Trinamool and the Congress fought the election together. Of West Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats, these two parties won 25: 19 for Trin-amool and six for the Congress. The SUCI, a third party in the alliance, won a single seat. The Left Front was reduced to 15 seats, its worst performance in over 30 years. The BJP won one seat, Darjeeling. As the Howrah election makes apparent, there is still a persuasive argument to be made for a tie-up between Trinamool and the Congress. Arithmetically, this combination is very strong. In the recent by-poll it could have given the Trinamool candidate a 100,000 vote victory. In 2014, it could reduce the Left Front to 10-12 seats. However, politics is not just arithmetic, it calls for chemistry, too. A year ago, Ms Banerjee took a call that the Congress was a sinking ship, was vastly unpopular in Bengal and the rest of India and would pay the price for 10 years of incumbency. She walked out of the UPA government, accused the Congress of corruption, misgovernance, economic ruin. For better or worse, she has been consistent in that position. For her to approach the Congress now for an alliance is extremely unlikely. It will make her appear fickle. Also, it will allow the CPM-led Left Front to take advantage of any anti-UPA mood in the Lok Sabha campaign. What happens if there is a threeway contest? Political assessments are bleak for the Congress. On its own, with the bulk of party support having migrated to Trinamool, the Congress can achieve little. It is relevant in, really, two districts—Murshidabad and Malda—along with neighbouring North Dinajpur. In Malda-North Dinajpur, the Congress has three MPs, including two current Union ministers. Ms Banerjee cannot replace the Congress here but can hurt it. The advantage in these north Bengal constituencies will then swing to the CPM, which has been trying to upstage the Congress in Malda for years. In such a scenario, the Congress, left alone, could well be reduced to a two-three seat party in West Bengal and would be facing permanent and irreversible atrophy in the state. The BJP, presumably led by Narendra Modi, would obviously not repeat its Howrah favour and would want to put up candidates across the state to exploit its national mascot’s perceived appeal. This could give the BJP one or two seats (including Darjeeling, which it already holds) but also take away votes from all other parties, including the Congress in urban areas. If the two national parties win say four or five seats between them, what happens to the rest of West Bengal? It is a fair estimate that the remaining 37-38 seats will be divided nearly equally between Trinamool and the Left Front. The cracking of the grand alliance of 2009-11 will allow the CPM to if not recover ground at least arrest decline. As such, it is possible the Left Front may win a seat or two more than Trinamool or a seat or two less. Will this mean a Trinamool defeat and a CPM recovery in the 2016 Assembly elections? Not necessarily; it depends on whether Ms Banerjee holds her nerve. The CPM continues to face challenges in Bengal as to its leadership and its programmatic identity. Also, it is likely what little remains of the Congress will inevitably move into the Trinamool embrace after 2014. This will make Trinamool a formidable force in 2016, though admittedly not an unbeatable one. The big question before Ms Banerjee is this: does she want to cripple the CPM in 2014 or does she want to destroy the Congress? The first entails going back to the Congress alliance but will revive a troublesome ally. The second offers a high risk-high gain alternative. That is the message from Howrah. The decision Ms Banerjee takes will have implications well beyond West Bengal. It could revive or damage the Congress as the fulcrum of a possible coalition in New Delhi in the period after the coming Lok Sabha elections. It could potentially give the Left Front and the CPM a shot in the arm at a time when it seemed to be losing everything and enhance its capacity to do business with the Congress and build an alliance of like-minded parties in national politics. It could leave the Trinamool itself poised between playing a big role in the capital and risking a perhaps temporary setback. That’s quite a packet of consequences from just one by-election.