Addressing a farmers’ rally in West Bengal’s Midnapore district this Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “Bengal is being ruled by syndicates. Like Tripura, our party will ensure that this party [Trinamool Congress] is also ousted from Bengal like the Marxists. People of Bengal are waiting for the opportunity. Our leaders are ready. If you have the courage, you can shake off this syndicate.”
Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah have clearly set their sights on West Bengal. They never seem to lose an opportunity to to invoke the names of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in a bid to expand the party’s influence and popularity in the state. However, there is a growing perception within and outside West Bengal that the BJP is far from mounting a serious challenge to the ruling Trinamool Congress and chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Aware of the party’s limited capacity to mobilise people, the BJP deliberately chose a small venue like Midnapore College Grounds which has a capacity of accommodating a 10,000-strong crowd. The reason for choosing the venue was reportedly its proximity to Maoist-affected Jangalmahal where the BJP had made inroads during the recent panchayat elections.
With the 2019 Lok Sabha polls around the corner, the BJP has started to look eastwards. This is probably because party leaders are certain that it would not perform well in western and north India (considered to be its strongholds) and results of by-elections have also indicated a similar trend.
To bag the magic figure of 272 to win the next parliamentary elections, both Modi and Shah are now concentrating on working out strategies for the 143 Lok Sabha seats in the eastern region, which includes 42 seats in West Bengal, 14 in Jharkhand, 40 in Bihar, 21 in Odisha and 26 in the Northeast.
But in reality, the state BJP unit is a dysfunctional organisation plagued by factionalism and headed by opportunist leaders. BJP workers in the state, including a large number of defectors from Left parties, the Congress and even the TMC, are not committed to the saffron brigade’s ideology. They have thrown in their lot with the BJP to further their own gains.
Bengal’s old BJP brigade, sidelined and racked by dissidence, is praying for the party’s defeat in 2019. The disillusioned lot is dismissive about Shah’s call to ensure that the party wins 22 Lok Sabha seats out of the total 42 seats. Last month, during his visit to the state, Shah swore to oust incumbent Trinamool Congress chief minister Mamata Banerjee from power and exhorted party workers to make the BJP was “more credible” in popular perception. After the BJP came to power at the Centre, Amit Shah has visited West Bengal at least six times. In closed door meetings, he has issued instructions to the state leaders to form small committees at the ground level.
More so, with several state leaders, including BJP unit president Dilip Ghosh, delivering fiery speeches instigating party workers, the party has earned the wrath of the ruling TMC and the police.
Roopa Ganguly and Dilip Ghosh with PM Modi Roopa Ganguly and Dilip Ghosh with PM Modi. Credit: PTI
In November 2015, Dilip Ghosh replaced Rahul Sinha as state BJP president. His first task was to oust the old timers. Ghosh brought in entrants from other parties and non-political individuals. Jay Prakash Majumdar was not even a sixth grade leader in the state Congress. He was made vice-president of the state BJP and projected as a leader who would brief central leaders and also the media. Another such leader is actor Roopa Ganguly, who was made president of the women’s wing. Nominated to contest the assembly polls from Uttar Howrah, Ganguly lost miserably. Despite the humiliating defeat, Ganguly was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in the quota reserved for eminent non-political personalities.
Like Ganguly, Locket Chatterjee, who was close to the TMC and a member of state women’s right commission, was nominated to contest the Mayureswar Assembly constituency in Birbhum. She, too, lost the polls. Actor George Baker, who had been nominated as the BJP candidate from Howrah Lok Sabha seat, also lost but was nominated as a Rajya Sabha MP from the Anglo-Indian quota.
Leaders like Sayantan Basu, Raju Banerjee and Debasree Chowdhury with no experience and connect with party workers or people of the state alike were elevated and appointed as state BJP general secretaries.
Even after getting 18% of the votes polled in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP fared extremely poorly in the 2015 municipal elections. In the Kolkata Municipal Corporation polls the BJP won in seven wards. But of the seven elected corporators, two switched over to the ruling TMC.
In the entire state, the BJP failed to win even a single municipality and majority of its elected corporators switched over to the TMC. Even state president Dilip Ghosh who is elected to state assembly from Kharagpur Sadar constituency in Paschim Medinipur seat could not retain his flock of municipal councillors. One such councillor was Puja Naidu, widow of the slain mafia don Srini Naidu, who was nominated despite strong opposition by some BJP leaders.
In the 2016 assembly polls, the BJP got 11% votes and in the subsequent by-elections it came second in many seats ousting the Left-Congress combine and emerging as the main opposition party to the TMC. But in reality, the total votes gained by the BJP were far less than even the victory margin of the winning TMC candidates. In the recently held panchayat elections ridden with violence, the BJP managed to get 10.12% votes.
In the 2014 polls, the BJP contested 42 seats in Bengal and won only two. Afterwards, several meetings were convened by national BJP leaders and the RSS to analyse the poll outcome and strategies were worked out to strengthen the party.
In the 2016 assembly polls, the BJP, for the first time, contested 291 out of a total of 294. Only three of its nominees, including Dilip Ghosh, won. But not a single meeting was convened to analyse the defeat.
The BJP has certainly emerged as an opposition to the TMC in Bengal but it is certainly not a formidable and credible opposition like the Left-Congress alliance in the 2016 Assembly polls.
In 2014, the odds had been very much stacked against the BJP but people who were against the TMC rallied behind the party and even helped it financially. With a display of political acumen form the then leadership, the party came second in nine seats. Such committed leaders have now disappeared into the woodwork.
Though BJP’s vote share in the 2019 Lok Sabha in the state is expected rise, with such a state of affairs and with leaders without basic integrity and credibility, the desire of winning 22 out of 42 is likely to remain a dream.
Arup Chanda is a senior journalist based in Kolkata.