Trinamool Congress

Between 2011 and 2021 West Bengal was dominated by the personality of Mamata Banerjee and the period can be described as the Mamata era. She destroyed the power of both the Maoists and Left Front after coming to power, introduced several populist schemes and appeared to be the undisputed ruler of the state by 2016. However, she committed a same-side goal in the panchayat election of 2018 and gave a fresh lease of life to the opposition. Ironically, it was not the left but the right that capitalised on it.

People’s Car: Industrial India and the Riddles of Populism by Sarasij Majumder, Orient BlackSwan, 2019; pp xii + 198, Rs 695 hardcover.

The assembly elections in West Bengal in 2016 were historic not only because the Trinamool Congress was given a second chance with a massive mandate, but also because, for the first time in decades, a single political party managed to win the election. Moreover, the TMC secured victory in most of the traditional left bastions, making the Left Front virtually insignificant in state politics. While populist and direct-benefit schemes are most prominently seen as the reasons behind the party’s success, there also exist the hitherto unaddressed alternatives to the Left Front government’s systematic development of “party society.” The promotion of traditional cultural expressions conceptualised as “cultural misrecognition” helped the TMC sustain its control and also attracted votes of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes of the state who traditionally constituted the support base of the left.

The steady decline of the left and the Congress has created a political vacuum in West Bengal. While the Trinamool Congress government consolidated its support base with important populist measures, some of its pro-Muslim policies drew flak from a section of the Hindus. The Bharatiya Janata Party is trying to enter into Bengal politics by attacking the TMC on its appeasement policy and is trying to whip up pro-Hindu sentiments. With the weakening of secular democratic forces, the polarisation of the society on communal lines is taking place with much vigour.