Deng Xiaoping did not have to face popular elections while his economic reforms changed China. It is Tony Blair?s New Labour that perhaps is a closer parallel to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee?s New Left. Both have made economic reforms and change the stuff of electoral victory, thanks largely to the changing profiles of their parties.

For Bengal?s chief minister, the proof came yet again in the just-concluded municipal polls. This was the fourth election in the state in less than five years since he had taken over the reins from Jyoti Basu ? after the assembly polls of 2001, the ones to the panchayats in 2003 and to the Lok Sabha in 2004. If you remember, development was his ? and the Left Front?s ? electoral slogan in 2001. Since then, as his reforms have gained momentum, the left?s poll victories too have been more emphatic.

In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the left in Bengal polled 50.72 per cent, its highest in any parliamentary elections since 1989. And, in the civic polls this month, it has been a runaway success on an unprecedented scale. Not only has the left vastly improved its tally of the civic boards, it has won a staggering 62 per cent of the wards throughout the state.

What does this mean for Bengal?s politics and the Bengali society? The answers that immediately come to one?s mind are not incorrect or irrelevant. There is a direct relation between the rise of Bhattacharjee and the decline of Mamata Banerjee. A disorganized and self-defeating Congress is unable to reclaim the opposition space that a shrinking Trinamool Congress is leaving, despite the party being back in power in New Delhi. There is also the ever-present shadow of the Marxists? organizational might on the elections and of their many abuses of power. These are all valid explanations, but only up to a point. They still do not capture the big picture.

The big picture lies in a big change in Bengal?s political culture and increasingly in Bengali society. The chief minister and his reformist agenda are the public face of this change. The sum of this change can be seen even in the persona of Bhattacharjee himself. Once upon a time, he represented the typical image of a Bengali leftist ? much more than Jyoti Basu. He came from a lower middle-class background, unlike Basu?s upper-class, England-educated type, loved football, literature and left politics and hated anything and everything that stank of money.

This was the kind of Bengali of whom Calcutta?s Marwari community said, ?Thoda pade-likkhe hai lekin koi kaam ki nahin (some education yes, but no good for any work). Stopping work came easily to him and the political argument for doing so came even more easily. He also talked of ? and worked for ? changing things, but that precisely was his politics. This society was largely the handiwork of leftist politics and it helped the left win and retain power in Bengal for so long. Being the party of the government forced slow but inescapable changes on the left.

In his own person, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee shows how far the Bengali has changed. In the mid-Nineties, when the talk of a successor for Basu was first heard, I remember asking Bhattacharjee how he would feel if he was the chosen one. ?Oh no,? he said, ?sitting in that chair (of the chief minister) means doing things I am not cut out for.?

All journalists hate to sound fawning or cheerleading about people in power. But Bhattacharjee?s transformation has made worse sceptics revise their opinions about him and the left. It isn?t just the reforms and modernization, which actually began with Basu himself. But Bhattacharjee has come to represent the change the way Basu never did, not at least in the public mind. He has come to represent the hope of a new Bengal where even ordinary people are discovering new virtues in money and industry.

No wonder Mamata Banerjee?s politics of street fights has lost its appeal. That was the politics that brought the left to power almost three decades ago. It is simply out of sync with the changing political, cultural and social aspirations of today?s Bengal.

Anyone familiar with the ways of Bengal?s Marxists would know that the change that the chief minister represents is also the story of his party. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) is nothing if not an organization that is constantly changing itself in order to suit the demands of the day. You can call that opportunism, ideologues have called it revisionism, but there is no denying the fact. His personal attributes may make things somewhat different, but Bhattacharjee would not have been the reformer the people and the media see in him if his party had remained totally unreformed.

The worst mistake would be to treat the importance of the party as a footnote to the leader?s story. If other reformist chief ministers such as N. Chandrababu Naidu, Digvijay Singh and Ashok Gehlot fell by the wayside in recent elections, the fault may have lay largely in the ability of their parties to make the reforms stand up to the electoral test. There were other factors in their fall, but the reforms clearly did not give them enough political advantage.

Compare that with what the left is doing in Bengal. It is constantly trying to balance reforms with its traditional emphasis on social sectors. The result is an expanding votebank that cuts across economic classes. It is somewhat like this. The poor continue to look up to the left for succour for most of the times and this is ensured by the left?s control of institutions like the panchayats and municipalities. For workers of closed and sick industries, there is little choice but to bank on the left, even if that does not lead to any improvement in their situation. In earlier elections, they may have given up on the left as well, but other parties inspired even less hope. Hence the CPI(M)?s recovery in the municipal polls of lost ground in the old industrial belt in Howrah, Hooghly and North 24 Parganas.

But the most striking fact about these elections could be the left?s inroads into upper class constituencies which have traditionally voted against it. This may be directly related to the pro-reform image of the chief minister. These classes are still allergic to the communists, but their social and economic ambitions can be fulfilled only if a new Bengal rises on the horizon fast enough. They may not exactly love him, but he is the best bet available.

How much of these social constituencies are moving over to the left may be seen more clearly in next month?s polls to the Calcutta municipal elections. The Bhattacharjee effect should be more pronounced among the urban voters of the city. One indication of this was available in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. In all three constituencies in the city, the left?s share of votes increased substantially. In Calcutta North-east, the CPI(M) nominee secured over 50 per cent of the votes. Even if Mamata Banerjee kept her South Calcutta seat, the left vote there rose by 6.5 per cent.

But then, the mayor, Subrata Mukherjee, has been the face of change in Calcutta. Can he win the city the way the chief minister has won the districts? Yes, one could have answered without a doubt, if the mayor had a party like Bhattacharjee?s. It could still be an election that would give a foretaste of new political alignments before next year?s assembly polls.