Jungle Mahal battle: How Mamata is using murder accused ex-Maoist Chhatradhar Mahato as a trump card against BJP

The first phase of West Bengal Assembly elections is underway in the former Maoist belt of Jangalmahal viz. Purulia, Bankura, Jhargram, Paschim Medinipur and the high-stakes Purba Medinipur. While BJP had a strong showing in the 2018 Panchayat polls as well as the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in these regions, a panicked Mamata Banerjee has resorted to using a murder convict and former Maoist leader to steer its sinking ship in the crucial tribal area.

TMC has fielded Chhatradhar Mahato, the leader of a Maoist organisation named People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) which had tried to blow up former Bengal CM and left leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s convoy in November 2008 and remained highly active till 2011. Mahato was then arrested in 2009 by the police masquerading as journalists and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2015.

But Mamata, who wanted to unseat the long-ruling left from the state, took Mahato’s arrest as an opportunity to garner the Adivasi votes. TMC worked in close coordination with the PCPA and managed to storm into power for the first time. However, Mahato and his PCPA were dropped like a sack of hot potato for the next 8 years. Mahato stayed in jail while Mamata building on her initial success continued to reap the rewards in the tribal belt.

Read more: Mamata Banerjee is losing tribal areas to the BJP. So she has called on Hemant Soren hoping for a turnaround

In the 2016 assembly elections, Mamata won 31 seats of the 40 in the Jangalmahal tribal belt and it looked like TMC didn’t need any Maoist leader in its midst to sweep the votes. However, that changed in the 2018 panchayat polls. The BJP won 42 per cent of the vote in Jhargram and 33 per cent in Purulia in that election. A year later, the Lok Sabha results saw the BJP sweep five (Purulia, Jhargram, Bankura, Bishnupur, Medinipur) of the six Lok Sabha constituencies in this belt, which sent alarm bells ringing in the TMC. In the context of the assembly, this would count for 42 seats.

Emergency meetings were held, files started moving with alarming pace in the secretariat and soon Mahato was let out of jail in February 2020. To satiate the Maoist leader who was harbouring some deep, unseated anger against TMC for ignoring him — the Mamata led party ensured that Chhatradhar’s son received lucrative government job offers.

Fast forward to 2021 assembly elections and the face of the PCPA is now campaigning for Mamata to keep a resurgent BJP at bay. Mahato claims the Trinamool would now do well in Assembly seats where the BJP led in 2019.

“The BJP divided the tribal community after its win. They pitted Kurmi (OBC) against Santhal Adivasi (ST) for political gains. But the people of Jangalmahal want peace and no more bloodshed. They were misled into believing that the BJP is working for their rights,” said Mahato in an interview.

While Mamata thinks Mahato is the answer to her prayers of victory, the other tribal communities and their leaders feel betrayed at Mahato’s sudden rise to the top.

Read More: Mamata Banerjee is losing tribal areas to the BJP. So she has called on Hemant Soren hoping for a turnaround

“The tribals feel Mamata has betrayed them. We elected her hoping for good governance, but she let loose her corrupt leaders on us. We (tribals) got nothing, whereas even hardcore Maoists were rehabilitated with fat comp­ensation packages and given jobs,” Krishna Murmu of the Bharat Jakat Manjhi Pargana Mahal (an outfit of the Santhals) had said in an interview last year.

The anger would have only grown in the lead up to the assembly polls and thus it appears that Mamata’s ploy of parachuting an anti-hero in the midst of public might backfire and eventually gift the tribal belt to BJP once again.