Narada set to plague Mamata Banerjee in today’s Kolkata voting

The Narada scam is all set to cast its shadow over the Trinamul Congress in the ongoing West Bengal polls. Sensing this, firebrand chief minister Mamata Banerjee appears to have got into apology mode.

Battered by the Narada scam, the TMC is no longer sure of coasting to a “comfortable win” in the six-phase seven-day election, whose results will be declared on May 19. This was evident as Ms Banerjee pleaded during the campaign: “Bhul kore thakle thappar marun, kintu chor bolben na (If I have committed a mistake, slap me, but don’t call me a thief).” While parts of Kolkata and Howrah will vote on Saturday, the last round of voting in the state is on May 5.

In a close fight, both the Trinamul and the Left-Congress combine feel that the splitting of the BJP’s 17 per cent voteshare could determine the winner. They feel whoever gets most of these 17 per cent votes could form the next government in the state. While TMC members claimed the party has a clear edge, a recent opinion poll has given the Left-Congress combine a clear majority.

With Narada looming large, the chief minister told people while campaigning at Kharda for finance minister Amit Mitra: “He is Amit Mitra, a true gentleman, and has not taken money from Narada. You can vote for him without any hesitation.” Ms Banerjee has not only tried to distance herself from Narada-tainted candidates, she even declared that had she known about the Narada scam earlier, the party would not have given tickets to those named in the scam. “Since candidates were already selected, I couldn’t do a thing,” she said at a rally in Kolkata. The sting, that was revealed a few weeks before the first phase of voting in early April, showed a number of top Trinamul leaders and ministers accepting bribes to help set up a fictitious company, which has put the party in a spot.

The Narada scam is expected to have a major impact in urban areas that will vote on Saturday. Ms Banerjee’s move to distance herself from Narada-tainted leaders in the fray has left them seething. The Narada-tainted TMC candidates in the fray from Kolkata are Sovan Chatterjee, Subrata Mukherjee and Bobby Hakim. At this point, the TMC holds all 11 Assembly berths in Kolkata. There are strong signs that these numbers could now change.

While there is a tug of war going on between the TMC and the Left-Congress combine over the BJP’s 17 per cent voteshare, the Congress’ ability to hold on to its share of vote is also worrying TMC leaders. In the 2011 Assembly polls and in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress maintained a steady nine per cent voteshare. While the CPI(M)-led Left had a 41.05 per cent vote in 2011, it fell drastically to 29.93 per cent in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The TMC voteshare had touched nearly 40 per cent in both the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls.

A section of TMC leaders feel that “ignoring Congress was a major blunder”. The poll arithmetic indicates that in the 2011 Assembly elections, the TMC-Congress combine had secured 47.98 per cent of the vote, against 41.05 per cent for the Left Front. While the Congress got 9.05 per cent, the TMC secured 38.93 per cent. The alliance had decimated the Left Front. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress (no longer a TMC ally) kept 9.68 per cent of the vote, while the TMC got 39.77 per cent. With the alliance between the Left and the Congress, a large chunk of the Congress’ nine per cent could shift to the CPI(M) after electoral adjustments.

Another major concern for the TMC was the reshuffle in the top civil and police bureaucracy, with nearly 50 IAS and IPS officers, including Kolkata’s police commissioner, shifted on the orders of the Election Commission. The EC had also issued a showcause notice to the chief minister over promises made in the campaign.