West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has written a long letter to the Chief Election Commissioner of India lodging a strong protest against the transfer of several senior IAS and IPS officers, including the Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police. The ECI has ordered the transfer of 13 IAS and about 18 IPS officers with directions that these officials will not be assigned any poll-related duties within the state.
Similarly, the ECI has also ordered transfers in other poll-bound states of Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. While in Assam it is BJP’s government, in Tamil Nadu it is DMK and in Kerala, it is the government of the Left Front. None of those chief ministers have raised any objection, leave aside lodging a strong protest.
To ensure neutrality, it is a normal practice in poll-bound states by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to transfer senior police and administrative officers who can influence the elections. This happens everywhere in all elections. Opposition parties across the country in all states ensure that the incumbent officers are replaced. But the ECI uses its discretion based on the reports of its own observers drawn from outside states and only then orders the transfers.
Mamata has always adopted a confrontationist approach in politics. She started her political career in the Youth Congress and rose to become West Bengal Youth Congress president when the Left Front government was at the peak of its power. The Communist regime in West Bengal was known for its ruthlessness. She took the Communists head on and eventually ousted them from power.
The Communists had so deeply entrenched themselves in the system that they ruled West Bengal from 1977 to 2011 with an iron fist. The Congress, which till that time was the only opposition party in West Bengal, had practically given up. The Communists would always get a walkover in absence of any effective opposition. When Mamata, first being the state Youth Congress president and later General Secretary of the Indian Youth Congress, wanted to confront the left regime, she did not receive any support or encouragement.
She eventually rebelled and resigned from the Congress to form her own Trinamool Congress. She started with the National Democratic Alliance government and also served as a minister in the Vajpayee government. She later switched over to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government and served as a minister there as well.
She launched the famous agitation in Nandigram against the land acquisition for Tata, which wanted to set up a car plant there. Thanks to her agitation, land acquisition was cancelled and Tata relocated to Gujarat. She tasted blood and ultimately managed to defeat and oust the Left Front government after 34 years in 2011. Having been baptised by fire, as it was no ordinary task to confront the Left regime leave aside defeating and ousting it, she picked up many tricks of the trade from them and has replicated the same model.
Also read: Mamata’s SC appearance: Driven by political motive?
Having emerged and evolved from confrontationist politics right from the beginning, Mamata has not stopped practicing it even till today. That is why she is giving the Bharatiya Janata Party a run for its money. The BJP also realises her power, strength and weaknesses. She has survived 15 years for three consecutive terms. She faced the BJP’s real might in 2021 and still managed to defeat it. The BJP this time appears to be in no mood to allow any space or escape to Mamata.
Having been in power for 15 years does lead to anti-incumbency sentiment. But at the same time, the party that remains in power for such a long period of time manages to establish firm roots in the bureaucracy and police. While it may not be so easy to completely filter the state administration off the TMC supporters, but once some senior and important officers get replaced, the message gets down loud and clear that everyone is being watched.
Mamata realises that the role of the officials is very important. The officials don’t need to be blatantly compliant; they can be sympathisers and supporters and that makes a lot of difference. Since the BJP knows the game equally well, if not better, the party has been identifying the officials and reporting them to the ECI. This again is a standard and common practice adopted everywhere by the opposition parties. By and large, the ECI does not ignore the complaints against the officials and takes these seriously no matter who the complainant is. Since in case of West Bengal, the opposition party happens to be the BJP, when the ECI takes cognisance of its complaints, the ruling party cries foul alleging that the commission was favouring the BJP.
While Mamata has been adopting a stringently confrontationist posture, she is also trying to play the victim. The way she barged into the IPAC office when the ED raid was going on and walked away with some documents, shows that she can go to any extent to guard and defend herself. This time she appears to be facing a very serious challenge from the BJP, which she seems to be finding very tough to battle. That is why she has been consistently complaining against the Election Commission, first on the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and now about the transfer of various officials. Something seems to be seriously amiss that has made Mamata act quite nervous.
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