Like Gold In A Furnace

Since joining the BJP in December last year, former Trinamool Congress heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari has made repeated appeals before Left supporters to vote for the BJP in the impending assembly polls so that they can vote freely for their own parties in the 2023 panchayat elections when the new BJP government in West Bengal would ensure free and fair polling. It’s a novel approach.

On the other hand, since January, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah started taking digs at the Left leadership for ruining the state’s economy and distorting its “original culture” by indulging in “appeasement politics”.

There is a reason why the BJP is according importance to the Left and taking up a two-pronged strategy to win over their supporters—its 2019 Lok Sabha election success in Bengal was built on Left supporters shifting votes to the BJP to take on the TMC. Now that the Left is trying to revive itself—with a vigorous street campaign and an alliance with the Congress and Muslim cleric Abbas Siddiqui’s Indian Secular Front—the BJP is worried. If the Left manages to wrest back a portion of their traditional votes, it could hurt BJP prospects.

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Going by the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the difference between the TMC and the BJP’s vote share was of only three percentage points. It is close, both parties agree, and a third force could play spoiler for one or the other, especially in a season when voters and leaders are switching allegiance swiftly.

The BJP has more chances of suffering from the third front’s performance, says a state BJP leader, arguing that the pos­­sibility of a section shifting their votes back to the Left cannot be ruled out. “Many Left supporters who gathered under the BJP’s banner to take on local TMC leaders are disappointed to see the same man they had a grudge against in the BJP. The BJP’s mass induction, while strengthening the leadership, may well weaken the support base,” says a BJP Lok Sabha MP.  

The steady trickle of inducting TMC leaders—at last count, over three dozen MLAs, ministers, MPs and former MLAs have joined the BJP since 2019, the flow thickening after Suvendu Adhikari joined up—has not gone down well with a section of BJP old-timers, especially those with an RSS background. But it is the probable impact of these new leaders on Left supporters that keeps a section of the BJP leadership worried.

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There are other complex equations that no side can claim to be master of. Would the Matua-Namasudra refugees, who overwhelmingly voted the BJP in 2019, buying into the promise of the implemen­tation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, stick by them still, now that the BJP has failed to deliver? Would the TMC’s cam­paign among the tri­­bal communities, supporting a sep­­arate religious code for Sarna dha­­rma in the Census, impact the BJP’s strong base among tribals? How will the desertion of heavyweights affect TMC?

“It’s going to be one of the most complicated elections the state has ever seen. There are innumerable equations that can change a party’s vote share in different localities,” says psephologist Biswanath Chakraborty.

The BJP in Bengal is banking on four factors—anti-incumbency against Mamata Banerjee’s 10-year rule, the perceived popularity of Prime Minister Modi, the Hindutva wave created by the RSS and other organisations and the firepower of its human and material resources—to offset the two weaknesses troubling the party: organisational deficiencies and an alleged cultural disconnect.

One of the BJP’s prime slogans in Bengal—‘Lokkhyo Shonar Bangla’—or ‘Target Golden Bengal’, promises to restore Bengal’s glorious economic past. During his Brigade Parade Ground rally in Calcutta on March 7, Modi tried to sum it up: “We will bring in the real cha­­nge that means education and emp­­loyment opportunities, turning Bengal into a place appropriate for business and drawing investment, building modern infrastructure befitting the 21st century and creating opportunities for the poorest of the poor. We will bring back to Bengal whatever have been taken away from her.”

Illegal infiltration, a dominant cam­­p­­aign issue of the BJP, is addressed with another prominent slogan: “Prevent West Bengal for turning into West Bangladesh”. Senior BJP leaders, including state president Dilip Ghosh, state general secretary Sayantan Basu and refugee cell chief Mohit Ray have been highlighting how the Muslim population in Bengal increased from 19.25 per cent in 1947 to 27.01 per cent in 2011, how from having one Muslim-majority district, Murshidabad, at the time of Partition, Bengal now has three Muslim-majority districts, and how this increase is leading succeeding state governments to indulge in the politics of appeasement, even at the cost of letting Islamic fundamentalism rear its head.

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“We will bring an end to corruption, politics of appeasement and infiltration,” Modi promised, accusing past regimes of the Congress, the Left and the present TMC of encouraging inf­­i­­ltration to consolidate their votebank.

The TMC, while trying to remind people of the good work of the state government, is also working hard to intensify sentiments against the Centre, especially over the recent hike in fuel prices. It has cited the BJP’s mobilisation of leaders from outside the state as an incursion of ‘outsiders’ and a desperate effort to counter Mamata’s popularity amongst the masses.

TMC Rajya Sabha leader Derek O’Brien wrote on Twitter: “33 days, 8 phases, 22 Central ministers, 6 chief ministers, 3 central agencies, 10s of thousands of forces, Infinity money/media VERSUS One woman in a Hawaii chappal.”

Udayan Bandyopadhyay, a teacher of political science, thinks that despite leaders from all parties joining the BJP, the party’s vote share was likely to come down from its Lok Sabha tally of 40 per cent. “The TMC seems to have recovered some lost ground through certain recent government initiatives, while disaffection towards the BJP has been growing due to the Centre’s policies,” he says. “One should not forget that the TMC has created its own beneficiary base with social welfare programmes and their vote share did not reduce even in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections,” he adds.

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The BJP’s biggest handicap is, of course, a most discussed one—it just doesn’t have a comparative political personality in Bengal to match Mamata Banerjee. Results of at least four opinion polls released in February and March has shown Mamata as the preferred chief ministerial face and predicted her returning to power with a thin majority.

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However, according to political analyst Sajjan Kumar, who authored a recently-published survey report on the coming elections, a strong wing of anti-incumbency nullifies all other factors and the BJP is all set to grab power for being “at the right place at the right time”.

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“Based on the collation of entire field data and narratives in all 294 assembly constituencies, we are confident that the BJP is going to win quite comfortably, its organisational weaknesses notwithsta­nding. This is primarily…on account of the undercurrent of an intense anti-incu­mbency sentiment running across the state. Hence, BJP emerged as the default beneficiary,” he says. Kumar rules out any recent development, such as the TMC gov­­­ernment’s mass outreach progra­m­mes and new political formations, as having a substantial impact on the results.

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“The field narratives revealed an intense desire for change, wherein the degree of anti-incumbency seemed irreversible. Therefore, issues like leadership, candidate profile, organisational presence or weaknesses don’t appear to reverse the dynamics that we witnessed until December 2020,” the report says. For all the defections it has engineered, for all the issues it has raised—from corruption and nepotism to appeasement and lawlessness—a general mood of anti-incumbency may be the BJP’s best ally in Bengal.

By Snigdhendu Bhattacharya in Calcutta