Mamata’s moment of glory in Muslim-majority districts

Trinamool Congress leaders were candid about their chief’s wish before the elections in the three Muslim-majority districts of central Bengal — Uttar Dinajpur, Malda and Murshidabad.

“ Didi [Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee] said these districts would not get any freebies if they could not win some seats for the party,” a senior party leader from the Muslim community in Murshidabad had said before the elections.

The Trinamool leaders of the three districts may find some relief as the districts jointly contributed eight seats to the party’s tally of 211 on Thursday. The leaders are unanimous in saying that they are relieved with the result in their districts, especially in Murshidabad, where the Trinamool increased its seat share from one to four.

The achievement is doubly crucial as Murshidabad is the stronghold of State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. Moreover, minorities are in a majority in 25 of the 26 blocks of the district, where nearly 70 per cent of the population are Muslims.

It was no good news for Ms. Banerjee, who is often referred to as Mamata Banu in rural Bengal, to have only one of the 22 seats in such a district, the erstwhile capital of the Nawabs of Bengal. The Congress and the Left had friendly fights in three of the four seats, benefiting the Trinamool.

In Uttar Dinajpur, another Muslim-majority district, the Trinamool fought against a united opposition and bagged four of the nine seats. The party was ahead in two Assembly segments in the district in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. This time, the worst of the three Muslim-majority districts for the Trinamool was Malda, where even the BJP opened its account when the former failed to. The Trinamool’s two Ministers from Malda lost and the CPI(M)-Congress alliance won 11 of the 12 seats, despite infighting.

However, south Bengal — with 218 of 294 seats — entirely backed Ms. Banerjee. Most of the south’s Muslim-dominated blocks voted for the Trinamool, as in Birbhum.

Birbhum has 19 developmental blocks, of which four are Muslim-majority, while the Muslim population of 11 blocks are between 25-49 per cent. In blocks where Muslims make up more than 50 per cent of the population, the Trinamool won both the seats, Murarai and Nalhati, whereas in the rest of the blocks, it won seven of the nine seats. In Birbhum, the Trinamool had won all the 11 Assembly segments in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, contesting independently.

In 2016, the Chief Minister had been particularly worried about Muslim votes as a section of the community was sounding uncomfortable with the government. The Bengal president of the All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushrawat, Abdul Aziz, told The Hindu before the elections that they were worried about the growth of “religion-based nationalism” in the State during the Trinamool’s tenure. However, such observations did not dissuade Muslims eventually.

In North 24 Parganas district, which has nine Muslim-majority blocks with 11 seats, the Trinamool grabbed nine. In 2014, it won all the 11 seats. In the rest of the constituencies with a minority population ranging between 20 per cent and 49 per cent, the Trinamool won 18. However, expected support of the Scheduled Caste community of North 24 Parganas is another major factor that helped the Trinamool bag 27 of the 33 seats in the country’s second-most populous district.

In South 24 Parganas district, which has a Muslim population of more than 35 per cent and seven Muslim-majority blocks, the Trinamool bagged all six seats in the seven blocks.

The party dominated the rest of the blocks with a Muslim population of between 15 per cent and 45 per cent, bagging 27 of the 31 seats. The district is one of the poorest and it is a combination of factors, including distribution of cycles and foodgrains, which eventually helped the ruling party.

The two 24 Parganas added nearly 26 per cent of the seats of the party, while in some pockets, there was a minor surge in the Left’s share. However, Muslims evidently voted en masse for the Trinamool in south Bengal.

Maidul Islam, a political scientist from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, however, called the Muslim vote-bank “a myth”.

“Muslims vote in Bengal with other communities on the basis of priorities that include the basic needs of food, shelter and work. The Muslim vote bank is a myth,” Mr. Islam said.