V for welfare

The first congratulatory call came from the prime minister at 10 am sharp. At the time, most news channels had not declared a result, showing only trends. But it had become clear that Mamata Banerjee was on the verge of a landslide in Bengal. She, in predictably bullish fashion, had predicted an easy win, but the exit polls, by and large, disagreed. Their forecasts of a narrow victory, a revived opposition breathing down her neck, had caused four sleepless nights. At least, her insomnia meant she had time to devote to listening to Rabindra sangeet and reading Vivekananda. On the morning of May 19, results day, she forced herself through her morning rituals, a tepid shower and a few moments in front of a photo of her mother, a silent, necessary communion.

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In the end, of course, she needn't have worried. Trinamool Congress won with plenty to spare, 211 out of 294 seats, embarrassing the Left Front and the Congress, a marriage of convenience made so reluctantly, so timidly that it shouldn't be surprising that the voters were as sceptical of the alliance as the allying partners appeared to be. "People are intelligent," Mamata said, as the scale of her victory became apparent, "there were lies, conspiracies, all kinds of ganging up. But they saw through it all." Her phone kept ringing-Arun Jaitley wanted to congratulate her, as did Venkaiah Naidu, Arvind Kejriwal, Nitish Kumar, Chandrababu Naidu, Akhilesh Yadav, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan. It was after 2 pm when Sonia Gandhi made what must have been a difficult call. Mamata could not check herself. "Rajivji used to respect me a lot," she said, "I was really hurt by your decision. How could you make such a historic blunder (ally with the Left)?"

Mamata's win was a triumph of preparation, of perspiration. She attended around 200 rallies, covered nearly 100 kilometres on foot, seeing the effect her government was having on the lives of her constituents for herself. "Ki paccho toh? Chup keano (are you getting your benefits, why are you quiet)?" Officials were publicly reprimanded if she thought they weren't doing their job. "Personal contact," says TMC MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay, "taking quick decisions, maintaining contact with block-level officers is all part of good governance. In the last four years she's taken the secretariat, bureaucrats, officials to each district at least 10 times."

It's a connection voters rewarded; corruption allegations cut no ice. "I'm the mother," she told voters, "I've given birth to TMC. In a family of 20, 30 or 50, if one or two are bad, you can't blame the entire family." In the event, except for one, all the TMC leaders accused in the Narada sting of accepting bribes from a fictitious company were re-elected with margins ranging from comfortable to large. The multi-crore Saradha Group financial scam had equally negligible impact. "We do fair politics," Mamata took the opportunity provided by the TMC's win to say. "The 'corruption' was nothing, a conspiracy hatched by the BJP, Congress, the Left and ABP media."

What even Mamata's detractors are not denying is that her government has helped people. Congress leader Manas Bhuniya, a prominent face of his party's alliance with the Left and among Mamata's harshest critics, made a grudging concession. "Personal benefits," he said, "'what am I getting' rather than 'what is my community or state getting' determined election results this time round." Biswanath Chakrabarty, a political scientist and psephologist, says the effects of Mamata's policies are more widespread than Bhuniya will admit: "Khadya Sathi, the food security scheme, ensured that 7.49 crore people, nearly 80 per cent of the population, received 35 kg rice and wheat each month at Rs 2 a kg. When an incumbent government is providing a plateful of rice and a proper meal, why would people send their votes elsewhere?" It's a point of view Abhirup Sarkar, professor of economics at the Indian Statistical Institute, echoes: "She has attended to the basic needs of people-bijli, sadak, pani. Some 70 per cent of the voters belong to rural Bengal and rural areas had huge turnouts. Villagers could see things happening around them, super-speciality hospitals being built, vocational training colleges sprouting in remote Midnapore."

For Mamata then, given such a thumping mandate, the answer must be more of the same. She may have to find ways of generating employment rather than handing out unemployment allowance. But job creation is a national problem. "Investment in the rural underclass," says Sarkar, "still decides the fates of elections in India. Mamata's investment has paid off. She has consolidated her victory because of pro-people, pro-farmer and pro-poor policies. She's unlikely to change that formula." What is next on the agenda, surely, is Mamata's transformation into a national power-broker. She has already said in a TV interview that the TMC will play a crucial, possibly king-making role, in 2019. Bandyopadhyay said that the party is eyeing 42 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal. As for Mamata, she has already invited the likely leaders of a Third Front coalition-Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Sharad Yadav, Sharad Pawar and Arvind Kejriwal-to her swearing-in ceremony. "I have good relations with Nitish Kumar, Laluji," she said, hours after her election win, "we can always step away from conventional routes and explore the possibility of a new Federal Front."

She won't even shut the door on the Congress, provided they abandon the folly of their alliance with the Left. For her long-time opponents on the Left, her margin of victory made her magnanimous. "I wish them good health, and the strength to fight on. I will send them sweets," she smirked, her sarcasm laced with sugar.