Calcutta Capers

It seems the doings of the Jyoti Basu clan, more specifically, of his sonSubhabrata (Chandan), will form the staple of opposition propaganda, as theBengal poll campaign gets more intense and dirtier. A foretaste of what liesahead was available on a chat show of a local TV channel.

Robin Deb, the CPI(M)MLA ,was having a hard time against the overly aggressive Trinamool Congressleader Sadhan Pandey, who was not allowing Deb to speak! For good measure, Pandey put the boot in, asking, "You talk of democracywithin the CPI(M), but have you ever criticised the ways of ChandanBasu? Does anyone in your party dare?"

Deb, fumbling, did not knowwhat to say, but came back asking, "I hear that the people who sing anddance with Chandan have found a place of honour in your party."

The referencewas to Saugata Ray, till recently in the Congress and now in theTrinamool Congress, who is familiar with Chandan.

This prompted the moderator toask Pandey: "Is it possible that Chandan may also join your party someday?",evoking some laughter from the audience.

What intrigued observers was that Deb, as adept as anyone in the cut and thrust of argument and in the rough and tumbleof TV talk shows, did not seem to stand up for Chandan!

A message here forJyoti Basu and the left as a whole, maybe?

Bad enough for the Left Front, but what followed was not encouraging for theTrinamool either.

The talk veered round to rising power rates.

Suddenly thefocus was on the massive increase in the power rates in Calcutta during the pasttwo/three years.

It is common knowledge that the private power utility enjoys asymbiotic relationship with the state government which, strangely enough,does not even press the company to clear its dues to the government,amounting to over Rs 700 crore accumulated over a period of time!

Deblimply suggested that frequent increases in the prices of coal and other inputs ordered by the Centre were responsible for the tariff increase, implyingthat the state had little control over the process.The moderator, who recalled that his own electricity bill had trebled in threeyears, suggested that the utility seemed to enjoy an equally snug relationshipwith the Trinamool Congress.

Mamata Banerjee, for instancehad once launched a sit-down against it in protest against rising powerrates, but mysteriously called it off midstream, promising to resume it later.She never did.

Provoked, Pandey went overboard and promised that if the Ttinamul/Cong(I)combine came to power, he would make every effort to ensure that theutility, which enjoyed a monopoly despite being only a licensee of thegovernment, was brought to book.

Brave words, but now Calcutta citizens havesomething to look forward to.

For the Bengal Congress(I) unit, it is political hara-kiri of asort to go in as a junior partner to the Trinamool Congress in any electoralalliance.

Yet, this is what the party high command has ordained for their flock,raising some very awkward questions.

For instance, is there any precedent inIndia or anywhere in the world where a party 110 years old, has entered into analliance totally subservient to a theree-year-old party, its own offshoot?Observers are hard put to answer this one.

Despite their best efforts to contain and conceal the seething anger ofgrassroot Congressmen, whose only fault seems to be that they did not deserttheir party to join the Trinamool, state leaders Pranab Mukherjee and SomenMitra will long remember the blunt last words of party generalsecretary Kamal Nath: "Forget earlier elections, the situation has changedtotally after 1998" — the year Trinamool was launched.

The logicis that the Trinamool now accounts for a larger chunk of the non-left vote than theCongress.

True, but even in 1999 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress accounted for over 14per cent of popular votes as against Trinamool's 25 per cent.

Yet, out of the294 seats, Trinamool has allotted only 56 to its mother unit, leaving another 18in dispute! And the Congress high command is happy, oblivious of the party'slong innings during which it had weathered far worse!

"The High command always reacts in an extreme fashion to any situation. WhenMamata Banerjee repeatedly asked for a larger role within the party, she wassidelined and her threats to start a new party were ignored. Now that she hasmade a point, the high command has gone over to the opposite extreme andappeasement at any price is the name of the game. Do Congress leaders understandthe political fallout of their decision to join Trinamool?" asks an observer.

The answer seems to be no.

The Congress had won 83 seats and 39 percent of the votes in 1996. In case it contested over 200 seats this time, itsshare of the vote would have been around, at worst, 15 to 20 per cent.