The 1995 municipal election in West Bengal: The left front is down

Asian Survey

Volumn 37, Issue 10, 1997, Pages 905-916

  Gupta, Prasanta Sen ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF KALYANI   (India)

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EID: 5844246230     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2645612     Document Type: Article

References (32)

1. India has a long history of local self-government. When Lord Ripon became viceroy of British India (1880-84), the first generation of educated Indians, inspired by the ideals of democracy and liberty, emerged to demand a role in the governing of the country. Ripon felt, however, that the time was not yet ripe for giving them a role to play in the central or provincial government. He believed they should first be trained in the sphere of local government. Such training, argued Ripon, would be possible only when local bodies were elective and enjoyed real powers, and when the control over them by the state was considerably reduced. The resolution his government issued in 1882 embodies these ideas. For details, see M. Venkatarangaiya and M. Pattabhiram, eds., Local Government in India (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1969), pp. 93-208.
2. The team's report is popularly known as the Mehta Study Team Report after the name of its chairman, Balwantray Mehta, an ex-chief minister of the state of Gujarat. For the report's details, see Government of India, Committee on Plan Projects, Report of the Team for the Study of Community Projects and National Extension Service, vol. 2 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1957).
3. D. P. Malpani, The West Bengal Municipal Act, 1993 (Calcutta: Book-N-Trade, 1995), chap. 7.
4. Statesman, May 26, 1995.
5. Ibid., May 31, 1995.
6. Ibid., April 28, 1995.
7. Later, Banerjee said that she stayed away from the poll scene as a matter of principle after Patel's directive was ignored by the state party leadership. In her opinion, had the party been a little more liberal in accommodating some other "deserving candidates," the party could have won more municipalities. Telegraph, May 30, 1995.
8. Statesman, May 4, 1995.
9. Ibid., May 26, 1995.
10. Ibid., May 5, 1995. Local people called the LF-ruled Titagarh municipality in North 24 Parganas a "dead municipality." However, although some 500 employees had not received salaries for four months, the Titagarh municipality went to the LF. Sources in the municipality said that an agitation plan was shelved after "strict orders" were issued by the local Left leadership. Ibid., May 24, 1995.
11. Ibid., May 5, 1995. Local people called the LF-ruled Titagarh municipality in North 24 Parganas a "dead municipality." However, although some 500 employees had not received salaries for four months, the Titagarh municipality went to the LF. Sources in the municipality said that an agitation plan was shelved after "strict orders" were issued by the local Left leadership. Ibid., May 24, 1995.
12. Telegraph, May 30, 1995.
13. Statesman, May 11, 1995.
14. Ibid., May 31, 1995.
15. In May 1995, a small band of Congress members led by Arjun Singh, a former government minister, challenged the leadership of Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao on grounds of inefficiency. They wanted to wrest control of the party from Rao and then to reinvigorate it, but their efforts went to waste. See Economist (May 27-June 2, 1995), pp. 29-30.
16. Telegraph, May 30, 1995.
17. Telegraph, June 20, 1995. Both the minister, Prabir Sen Gupta, and the CPI leader, Santoshree Chatterjee, lived in the Hooghly area.
18. Statesman, May 23 and 24, 1995.
19. Disaffection with the LF began developing in the 1980s. See Prasanta Sen Gupta, "Poli-tics in West Bengal," Asian Survey (September 1989), pp. 883-97.
20. See Ross Mallick, Development Policy of a Communist Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 194.
21. Economic and Political Weekly, March 8, 1986, p. 411.
22. Biren Roy, "Jute Owners Offensive Goes Unopposed," ibid., August 7, 1982, p. 1266.
23. Ajit Roy, "Substituting Reform for Revolution," ibid., December 31, 1977, p. 2154.
24. Statesman, May 30, 1995.
25. Asian Age, June 19, 1995.
26. Labour in West Bengal 1992 (Department of Labour, Government of West Bengal, 1993), pp. 1-22.
27. Statesman, May 31, 1995.
28. Asian Age, June 21, 1995.
29. Tarun Ganguly, "Gathering No Mass," Telegraph, June 28, 1995.
30. Quoted in Ross Mallick, Development Policy, p. 217.
31. Deshhitaishee (in Bengali), annual number (Calcutta, 1981), p. 43.
32. Communist Party of India-Marxist, West Bengal State Conference (Calcutta, 1982), pp. 45, 46, 52.