The election to seven civic boards would scarcely have been of much moment were it not for the signals emitted in the latest round. That the Trinamul Congress would make a clean sweep, across North and South Bengal, was a fairly settled fact even before the first vote was cast last Sunday. The disconcerting thought for both the CPI-M and the Congress must be that they have been reduced to the also-ran category ~ a year before the panchayat elections. The civic elections showcase a case-study of the decimation that the Opposition has suffered. In terms of the psephological swing, therefore, the striking feature of the contest for the quangos ~ however limited in scale ~ is that the Bharatiya Janata Party has emerged as the second player in the electoral stakes, if way down the pecking order.

The saffronites have won six of the eight wards that voted against Trinamul. While the Congress has drawn a blank overall, the singular Left Front victory was recorded at Nalhati in Birbhum district where the Forward Bloc candidate has been elected to a ward. In tangible terms, Trinamul has strengthened its fort across a swathe of West Bengal. It is poised to form the civic boards in areas that were once bastions of the CPI-M, notably Durgapur Municipal Corporation, the municipality in Haldia (a port-cum-industrial town), Panskura, Cooper’s Camp, and Nalhati.

In parallel to the southern segment of the state, the ruling party has reinforced its position in North Bengal at the cost of the Congress by capturing Buniadpur and Dhupguri. Significant too must be the fact that five of the six wards, where the BJP has won, are under municipalities in North Bengal ~ four in Jalpaiguri’s Dhupguri and one in South Dinajpur’s Buniadpur. In comparison, the BJP’s performance in South Bengal was decidedly dismal; it will have to make do with a single ward in Panskura (Midnapore).

There is little doubt that the BJP has made an inroad of sorts in West Bengal’s vacant Opposition space. The Trinamul victories in Haldia and Durgapur have been quite spectacular as far as optics go. Markedly, it has won all the 29 wards in the port town, where a certain Lakhsman Seth of the CPI-M had once reigned supreme, often to the disgust of Alimuddin Street. It bears recall that the CPI-M had been able to retain these wards in the 2012 civic elections ~ a year after its debacle in the Assembly polls.

The rout in Haldia underscores a severe erosion in its support base. Notable also is the clean sweep by Trinamul in the other industrial town, Durgapur, where it has won all the 43 wards. Transcending the percentage points is the reality that the BJP is the Trinamul’s principal contender ~ a distressing reality that the CPI-M will have to countenance. Bengal politics was never so quirky.