The political scenario of Bengal turned upside down. A new era of Dominance is about to unleash which is still on. For 34 years the state of Bengal was ruled by CPM, a political party that controlled everything in Bengal. The era of CPM started in 1977 when the Communist Party Of India ( Marxist ) took over the control of the state politically. Jyoti Basu became the 1st CM of CPM and reigned control for 23 years undisputedly as a champion. CPM,s rule in west Bengal was undisputed, and unstoppable before a cyclone of change that was paving its way into the political scenario of west Bengal.
TMC was formed in 1998 by Mamata Banerjee after serving INC ( Indian National Congress ) for 26 years. After 13 years no one thought that this newly formed party would overthrow the undisputed political reign of CPIM. CPIM leadership went from Jyoti Basu to Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. In 2008 the most controversial landmark incident, the Tata Naño Singur factory incident took place, Tata Motors started manufacturing compact cars Nano. TMC opposed the building of the tata nano factory as illegal as it illegally acquired lands of farmers. The factory was shut down but that one incident closed the door to new employment opportunities in Bengal. Many multinationals do not get enough courage to invest in a business in west Bengal resulting in lesser employment opportunities. The political scenario in Bengal is signed by one factor, sheer dominance. On one side there is CPIM which ruled for 34 long years until one lady rose and challenged the mighty CPIM. Our present CM Mamata Banerjee at that time was in the opposition. People at that time are expecting something new in the political environment of West Bengal. They wanted a new leader, a new face as the face of Bengal. Common people have always prioritized 3 things at that time
- Food
- Clothing
- Shelter
Mamata Banerjee is that new face that people thought will bring change. Now change is never free of cost. Every action comes at a cost. Progress demands sacrifice. The NANO car factory in Singur would have generated lots of fresh employment opportunities but the land acquisition process of farmers' agricultural land was not followed properly. Progress cannot be built on the graveyard of problems of innocent farmers who feed the nation. If their land was grabbed, they would have faced serious problems and on moral grounds sacrificing 1000 people for a better future of 10 million people is not justified and acceptable. The 2011 Assembly election took place to elect members of the West Bengal Legislative assembly. From 18 April 2011 to 10 May 2011 it was held in 6 places. In that election, Trinomial won with an absolute majority. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya lost the election not only as the ruling party but also his seat in Jadavpur to Trinomul candidate Manish Gupta. That election is termed as the end of the longest time serving a democratically elected government. This is noted in the books of international media. This election was somehow influenced by the violence of the Nandigram and Tata Nano Singur controversy which led people to distrust the government.
The election took place in 6 phases, in 2011, Chief Election Commissioner of India S Y Quraishi announced the same. Phase 1 took place on 18 April 2011 in 54 Assembly constituencies Phase 2 on April 22 2011 the entire list is as follows
- Phase 1 18 April 2011 (54 assembly constituencies)
- Phase 2 22 April 2011 (50 assembly constituencies)
- Phase 3 27 April 2011 (75 assembly constituencies)
- Phase 4 3 May 2011 (63 assembly constituencies)
- Phase 5 7th May 2011 (38 assembly constituencies)
- Phase 6 10th May 2011 (14 assembly constituencies)
Result counting took place on 13 May 2011 on the entire 294 seats.
The parties who fought as an alliance are:
- AITC congress Alliance
- AITC (ALL INDIA TRINOMUL CONGRESS)
- INC (INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS)
- NCP (NATIONAL CONGRESS PARTY)
- SUCI ( SOCIALIST UNITY CENTRE OF INDIA )
- GNLF ( GORKHA NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT )
- JMM ( JHARKHAND MUKTI MONCHA )
- PDS ( PARTY OF DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM)
Left front alliance
- CPM (Communist Party of India) Marxist
- CPI (Communist Party of India)
- RSP (Revolutionary Socialist Party
- AIFB (All India Forward Blocs)
- RCPI (Revolutionary Communist Party of India)
- Marxist Forward Bloc
- Samajwadi Party
- Democratic Socialist Party
NATIONAL Democratic Alliance
- BJP (Bharatiya Janta Party)
- Gorkha Janmukta Morcha
Trinamul Congress contested 226 elections out of which they won 184. Communist Party of India ( Marxist ) contested 213 seats and won 40. Indian National Congress contested 66 seats of which it won 42. All India Forward Bloc contested 34 seats and won 11. The results are clear and a new party came into power trying to do betterment in their ways.
Any political party has its pros and cons. Many things which the new TMC party promised to deliver, actually those avenues are sorted. But few things never truly are delivered. A major problem of the health care situation in Bengal was slowly and slowly facing improvement since the time TMC came into power. SASTHA SATHI card is introduced for people who live below the poverty line to avail of free medical facilities that too from private hospitals. Transportation issues are also very much sorted well enough, metro and flyover projects are executed and completed pretty well. The Metro network is the best, easy mode of public transport. However, employment is a grave area of concern for educated youth in west Bengal. Corruption is equally alarming, now the fact is this is a common problem across India and maybe across the world. Every country has corruption. The only difference is countries with rich economies do not bother about it. There are people in any party irrespective of the ruling party or opposition who do want to change common people's lives in a better way but at the same, there are evil minds who think of political profit above everyone else. Poverty levels are being worked upon and schemes are formulated to make conditions better especially for farmers. However, in a broader sense, few areas have been slightly missed out. A system will not be fully operational error-free. But attempts are done to make things better. That's a point.
There are 5 fingers in a hand, and all the fingers are not the same. Similarly every system, a democratic party is run by a thought, a motive, or an ideology to run the state, or country. TMC had the motto of MAA, MATI, MANUS which means MOTHER, SOIL, AND PEOPLE. The basic challenge of any political party is identifying the areas of problem and formulating the strategy to solve that. The real issue arises when that solution's actual implementation happens at ground level. Planning an entire operation is different and executing it in ground realities is different and in a few cases, results can be unfavorable. The ruling party has to keep every aspect of action understanding, analyze and then execute any decision. 3 factors that mainly every political party understands and does
- Betterment of the land (state/country)
- Betterment of the people.
- Betterment of the party and the members who are working in it.
TMC has considerably done well and that is the reason somewhere down the line people trust TMC and that’s the proof since 2011 till date TMC is ruling. The cruel part of politics rather than any operating system in democracy if 2% of the entire system is not working well or doing things incorrectly the blame will fall on the entire body, system, and political party. If a scam is done by saying for example one MLA of TMC the repercussion will fall on TMC overall, and the image will be tarnished. The mistake is done by one but the effect will be on the face of the party that might seem a bit unfair but that is reality. Still, TMC somehow has been successful to acquire the trust of the majority of the people of West Bengal.