They quit the TMC to join the BJP. After the Bengal polls, they’re desperate to get back.
Like the huge herds on the unending plains of the Serengeti, they migrated back to where they were at the turn of the season. Jumping from BJP to the Trinamool Congress has become a general political trend in West Bengal since Mamata Banerjee’s return to power. It, of course, is the reverse of the pre-election season. The unique ways BJP workers at the grassroots level are adopting to join the TMC are the talk of the town.
Behold the scene when, on June 22, a group of BJP workers at Khanakul area in Hooghly district returned to the TMC in the presence of party Arambag MP Aparupa Poddar. They were led by Bibhas Mallik, who had left the TMC for the BJP before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The renegades—hold your breath—got their heads shaved “in repentance” and purified themselves by sprinkling Ganga water. The photos and video clippings of BJP workers getting themselves tonsured went viral on social media. “I don’t know why people would get themselves tonsured. The event was not discussed with the district leadership,” said a visibly embarrassed TMC Hooghly district president Dilip Yadav.
What happened in Birbhum district was no less gobsmacking. On June 14, a group of BJP workers sat on a dharna outside a TMC office at Illambazar. They had small placards that read “We sinned by being with the BJP” and “Please keep us under the TMC’s care” and others in the same vein. Revealingly, Birbhum is notorious for political violence, a reputation augmented over the past seven-eight years under the watch of TMC district unit chief Anubrata Mandal.
On June 18 at Birbhum’s Sainthia, about 300 BJP workers laid siege outside a TMC office, bellowing loudly: “We made a blunder by being with the BJP. Now that we have admitted our mistake, the TMC should take us back. Our dharna will continue until the TMC accepts us.” Finally, the TMC’s Banagram gram panchayat chief re-inducted them, but not before “purifying” them with Ganga water. Again, earlier this month at Labhpur, BJP workers were seen going about with microphones, publicly apologising for disturbing public peace at the behest of the BJP and appealing TMC leaders to take them back.
BJP leaders allege that all this happened because their terrified workers were finding for a way out of the violence directed at them for being with the party.
“They face threats in markets and other public places; the TMC is charging ‘taxes’ on them, and have trouble running their businesses, even harvesting crops. These acts reflect the helpless state BJP’s grassroots level workers are in,” says Abhijit Das, a BJP state committee member in charge of dealing with post-poll violence.
Not only BJP, rights activists, too, have read in such ostentatious ceremonies the TMC’s political violence. “The TMC has made it nearly impossible for opposition party workers to exist,” says Ranjit Sur, vice president of Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), the state’s largest human rights organisation.
Meanwhile, these events are also causing resentment among some TMC workers. At Domjur in Howrah, soon after turncoat former minister Rajib Banerjee gave hints of returning to the TMC, posters emerged in the area, cautioning TMC leaders against taking Banerjee back. The posters described him as a ‘traitor’. Similar posters had surfaced in Pandaveshwar in West Burdwan district, where the TMC workers were apprehensive that former Asansol mayor Jitendra Tiwari could try to make his way back.
Referring to the trend, TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said recently with biting sarcasm, “Those who went to join the BJP riding chartered flights are now trying to make their way back riding e-rickshaws.”
While top BJP leaders and governor Jagdeep Dhankhar have been repeatedly drawing attention to the alleged violence unleashed on opposition workers, chief minister Mamata Banerjee has dismissed the charges, as a few cases of ‘aberration’.
There have been a few contrasting pictures, too. The TMC’s Bhatar MLA Man Gobinda Adhikary helped displaced BJP workers return to their homes. Chinsurah MLA Asit Majumdar visited a trader who had supported the BJP and assured his family of all protection and Basirhat Dakshin MLA Saptarshi Banerjee was seen ‘handing over’ a CPI(M) office occupied by the local TMC workers to the party’s leadership. But, going by the general trend, these are the gestures that seem to be the aberration.
By Snigdhendu Bhattacharya in Calcutta