The Petrichor!

(The pleasant scent of rain falling on very dry ground!)

The longish eight-phase West Bengal Assembly elections are ending today. Psephologists have already started burning the midnight oil to give their opinions this evening, after the end of the voting process this evening. The forecasters are not the usually known faces but include Phalodi Satta Bazar and the Burra Bazar gamblers, who have been uploading their survey report progressively after the end of each phase of polling.

For the BJP, West Bengal elections had to be won, which would give the party control over much of east and northeast India. A loss would have resulted in the emergence of Mamata as the Goliath slayer and hypothetically as the leader of the opposition alliance, and probably the future PM of India.

Along with the West Bengal results, TN, Kerala, Assam, and Puducherry results will also be announced on the 2nd of May. Mamata had emerged as the most vocal critic of Modi and could have proved the game spoiler in the scheme of things for the BJP. Hence, the BJP leadership landed and camped in West Bengal in strength. Unlike their predecessors, PM Modi and HM Amit Shah broke all records with their frequent visits and intense campaigns.

Unlike the previous elections, the role of the State police was cut, the Central forces taking charge. The Election Commission rubbished the pleadings by TMC for ballot papers. The pleadings by Mamata to bundle the phases together, too, fell on deaf ears. The central Government, read the BJP, could have had the upper hand over several policy decisions, like the eight-phased election, on the number of Central forces employed and the transfer of State officials from crucial positions of electoral influence.

The ‘Khela Hobe,’ the play will be,’ was fallacious, but the ‘dekhey nebo,’ addressed to the policemen who remained neutral or leaned towards the BJP during the elections pathetic. It meant that I shall see you when I return to power, a threat that revealed deep distress and apprehension for the TMC Supremo. 

Sans the police, Vidyasagar kind of rescue, Didi’s wheelchair pain was hers alone, and perhaps for a few around her, who never stop marvelling at her every gimmick. The sympathy element had evaporated soon after her injury at Nandigram. Wheelchair, instead of sympathy, reflected the status of the State of West Bengal, driven to its nadir in the past four decades by successive governments.

Suppose the TMC has been proven incapable, who else in their place is the question. It is only by default the BJP could come into the picture in a free-thinking West Bengal. Despite many intellectuals, the literati and the glitterati pitching for the TMC, the rural wave seems stronger, as its protest cry ‘Jai Sri Ram.’  They all want a dignified life, a job and less politicking.

Finally, the BJP, I guess, will scrape through with a simple majority to rule West Bengal. If it is the mandate of the masses, rather than to oppose every progressive act, all parties must do their best in rebuilding West Bengal, if not for ‘Ram’s sake,’ for people’s sake. 

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix