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Business News›News›Politics›West Bengal bypolls emerge as battle for opposition space

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West Bengal bypolls emerge as battle for opposition space
Synopsis

West Bengal’s October 6 bypolls in Nandigram and Rejinagar have become a contest for the opposition space after the TMC split and loss of its original name and symbol. The Congress and Left seek to regain voters, while rival TMC factions compete for the party’s political inheritance, with BJP also in contention.

ANI

Kolkata: With the TMC battling an unprecedented internal rupture, the October 6 bypolls in two West Bengal seats have turned into a wider political contest over who gets to occupy the opposition space, as the Congress and Left seek to reclaim ground and rival TMC factions fight to establish themselves as the principal challenger to the BJP.



The by-elections to Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district and Rejinagar in Murshidabad will also bring to the fore which political formation emerges as the voice of the voters opposed to the ruling BJP but not aligned with the TMC, which has witnessed a vertical split and loss of name and poll symbol for the bypolls.



Amid the TMC factions of Mamata Banerjee and Arup Roy vying for the party's organisational and electoral inheritance, the Congress and the Left are seeking to recover the voters they lost to the Trinamool Congress before, while the BJP benefits from a divided opposition.

"This by-election is about which party emerges as the main challenger to the BJP. In Nandigram, the BJP is in an advantageous position and it would be interesting to see which party emerges as the runner-up," political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said.



Mamata faction's candidate, Sanchita Pradhan Dey, has withdrawn from the contest after meeting Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, and as Banerjee extended her support to the Congress nominee, Milan Pradhan, he was arrested in connection with cases filed against him during the 2007 anti-land acquisition movement in Nandigram and remanded to judicial custody.




In minority-dominated Rejinagar, the result is likely to indicate which direction the minority votes were moving after the assembly polls, Chakraborty said.

Banerjee had in 1998 broken away from the Congress to float the Trinamool or 'grassroots' Congress. Her party rode the Nandigram and Singur anti-land acquisition movements to end the Left Front's 34 years of uninterrupted rule in 2011.

Now, amid the bitter tussle between the two factions over the party's name and election symbol of 'twin flowers and grass', the EC froze both, and awarded the name 'Mamata All India Trinamool Congress' and 'footballer' symbol to Banerjee's faction, and 'Democratic Trinamool Congress' name and 'envelope' symbol to the rebel grouping.



"The Congress should now try to claim the political space occupied by the TMC. We should become the natural choice for all those, including minorities, who are opposed to the BJP," Congress leader Pradip Bhattacharya said.



On the Nandigram bypoll, Democratic Trinamool Congress leader Sandipan Saha said, "This election will prove we are the real TMC as their candidate has run away from the fight."



The rebel TMC faction has nominated Mohammad Eteshamul Haque for the seat.



Nandigram has thus become a test of whether the Mamata faction can retain relevance after losing the TMC identity or if the rebel faction would challenge that inheritance, and whether the Congress can reclaim its space.



The dispute between the two TMC factions over the party's organisation, cadre and voter base has become more evident in Rejinagar, where both groupings are engaged in a contest, unlike Nandigram.



The Mamata faction was jolted by a scare after its nominee Rabiul Alam Chowdhury announced his withdrawal of candidature, citing pressure on workers and difficulty familiarising voters with the faction's new identity and symbol. He, however, later reversed the decision after speaking to Banerjee and returned to the contest.



"Our candidate in Nandigram came under pressure, but in Rejinagar, despite immense pressure, he did not quit. But the moot point is that the BJP is scared of even bypolls," TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said.



Chowdhury now faces the rival TMC faction, Congress, CPI(M), Aam Janata Unnayan Party (AJUP) and BJP.



The rival faction has fielded Safiuzzaman Sheikh, Congress Mohammad Abdullahil Kafi, CPI(M) Syed Asad Ali, AJUP Ghulam Nabi Azad and BJP Sakharav Sarkar.



Rejinagar's substantial minority electorate makes it a laboratory for the question on whether a support base that often consolidated behind the TMC remains politically concentrated after the party's rupture.



While the Congress wants to recover territory it says it lost over decades, the Left hopes that voters who moved to the TMC can be brought back.



The two TMC factions, on the other hand, are asking voters to decide which organisation inherits the mother party.



"The Left, democratic and secular forces will play the role of the main opposition to the BJP in the state," CPI(M) central committee member Sujan Chakraborty told PTI.



The Congress faces a parallel challenge. Its decline in West Bengal predates the TMC and involved successive transfers of voters to the Left and then the Trinamool Congress.



"We are not bothered about who comes second or third. We know the BJP will win both the seats," BJP spokesperson Debjit Sarkar said, describing the old TMC symbol as a "symbol of fear".



Political analyst Subhomoy Moitra said, "The significance of these bypolls lies less in the two seats and more in the political space they represent. The opposition space against the BJP is up for grabs. The TMC's organisational rupture has given the Congress and the Left an opportunity to contest that space alongside the two rival TMC factions."



The arc of West Bengal's politics has repeatedly seen power shift – the Congress giving way to the Left, the Left to the TMC and, after 2026, the TMC to the BJP. What is different now is that no single formation has an uncontested claim to the opposition space.



The October 9 verdict may thus be less an end in itself than the opening chapter of West Bengal's next political phase.



With the BJP having moved from being a challenger to the ruler, the question of who commands the political ground opposite it is likely to shape the state's opposition politics, alliances and battles well beyond these two constituencies.

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