In terms of pure statistics, the Left vote share (read the CPM) according to preliminary estimates has gone down by 8 per cent to 10 per cent. It has been a remarkable sweep away from the ruling party that hardly anyone could have assessed. The current setbacks, for the ruling regime, if calculated in terms of assembly seats, should account for 71 assembly seats that the Left should deduct from its present kitty of 235 seats it had won in the 2006 state assembly polls.

There are more stunning statistics. For instance, at the lowest tier of the panchayati raj system in Bengal, the Left’s supremacy was unquestionable. In the 2003 panchayat polls, it had won 71 per cent of the gram panchayat (the lowest tier) seats, 86 per cent of the panchayat samiti (middle tier) seats and 86 per cent of the zilla parishad (uppermost tier) seats. In this election, it has come down to 50.71 per cent (lowest tier), 57 per cent (middle tier) and 61 per cent (uppermost tier) respectively.

Forcible land acquisition has undoubtedly factored in these upset results that cut across a wide spectrum of districts in South Bengal. The phenomenon was not restricted to Nandigram or Singur alone. Even areas that did not see much of Mamata Banerjee in terms of campaigns did show resounding support for the opposition. A strong anti-incumbency wave is more than evident. Voters were up in arms in distant pockets of North Bengal as well.

There are underlying messages in this outcome that certainly go beyond the issue of mere farmland acquisition for industry. The government backtracked from the land acquisition bid at Nandigram in the face of stiff opposition. But what it did not rescind was the “cadre raj”. The people of Bengal were witness to some of the worst versions of CPM-sponsored cadre raj that had had a cascading effect that went beyond the confines of Nandigram or Singur. The state police and the party’s armed cadres working in tandem to terrorise, torture and kill villagers might have been a familiar face of the rulers in the late ’70s, but it certainly is not acceptable any more in 2008.

This is where Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee failed to reform. This is where people saw through his duality. He successfully projected himself and the government to the urban audience by setting up urban infrastructure, increasing civic amenities, opening up a window of opportunity for the educated urbanite. The emphasis on IT, on foreign direct investments, on building roads, bridges, shopping malls and his robust industrialisation seemed to have gone well with the urban voters. He had at least changed the discourse from utter depression to an air of optimism for cities and urban centres. One was witness to his utter dismay at a 12-hour opposition-sponsored bandh that would cripple the IT sector or industry attendance. He was redefining the party and the government’s priority, largely fixing the urban electorate.

But he probably exposed his inner dogma when he dealt with the problem at Nandigram and Singur or the ration riots. Here, the chief minister was speaking in another voice. For example, the same chief minister who talked investments, who could strongly denounce bandhs and militancy in industry, could talk about “paying back the Nandigram people in the same coin”, backing up his cadres’ bid to forcibly capture villages. It sounded as if Bhattacharjee or his party comrades were speaking in the language of the late ’70s, and without any remorse. It had taken just 10 months for Bhattacharjee or his comrades to make amends now and admit that what the cadres were allowed to do was grossly wrong.

Leaders like Biman Bose who have an acid tongue are now sugarcoating their words: “There must have been deviations. We will have to analyse and correct these,” he says. This is what the panchayat polls have delivered. It is also reassuring that the CPM state leadership sounded committed to industrialisation even after the battering. The reform that they should be looking at, post this election, is the way the party runs at the grassroots level. The current trend, if unchecked, can bring bigger disasters for the Left and the CPM in the Lok Sabha polls, expected later this year or the state assembly polls in 2011. Significantly, in this panchayat poll, the opposition at the grassroots level evolved their own strategy to fight the CPM by way of consolidating the anti-Left vote in favour of one opposition candidate. And they have put up, for the first time, a formidable political opposition to the CPM in the rural segment.

The bitter lessons from the panchayat polls, if learned properly, should rescue the CPM from bigger perils in future. For the state, as a whole, it is only too good to have a strong opposition to the Marxists in rural Bengal.

subrata.nagchoudhury@expressindia.com