Humayun Kabir factor: Why religious mobilisations have limited impact on West Bengal’s poll arithmetic

Kolkata: As suspended TMC MLA Humayun Kabir mounts a fresh challenge to the party’s minority vote bank ahead of the assembly polls, West Bengal is once again witnessing a familiar surge in Muslim socio-political mobilisation, a phase that has generated noise in the past but couldn't alter electoral outcomes.

Despite such periodic churn, minority voting patterns in Bengal have remained largely stable over decades, shaped less by religious charisma or symbolic assertion than by organisation, alliances and vote consolidation.

With elections to the 294-member assembly just a few months away, episodes like Kabir’s rebellion, marked by sharp rhetoric and emotive symbolism, trigger speculation about a division of the TMC’s minority vote, long considered its electoral bulwark.

Similar phases in the past have dominated political discourse and media narratives, only to fade when electoral arithmetic reasserts itself on polling day.

Figures such as cleric Toha Siddiqui in 2016 and Abbas Siddiqui in 2021 drew crowds during campaign periods, while the current churn around Kabir reflects a comparable moment of political assertion. Each episode raised expectations of denting the TMC’s minority vote base and the emergence of an alternative centre of Muslim political leadership.

In practice, these assertions have tended to plateau once campaigns end, with arithmetic prevailing over momentum.

From Abbas Siddiqui’s political debut to Kabir’s political venture, Muslim-focused initiatives in Bengal have followed a familiar trajectory, peaking before elections, intensifying debate, and stabilising without producing a corresponding shift in voting patterns across seats.

Pre-poll mobilisation driven by religious authority has struggled to convert sentiment into seats, as booth-level organisation, alliance management, and vote transferability have remained decisive.

Analysts and political leaders attribute this recurrence to structural constraints rather than leadership-specific failure.

“Religious figures can influence emotion, but they cannot transfer minority votes across constituencies. Voters ask a simpler question- who can win, and who can stop the BJP,” political analyst Maidul Islam said.

The Indian Secular Front (ISF), floated by Abbas months before the 2021 polls and allied with the Left and Congress, was projected as a disruptor, "capable" of unsettling the TMC’s arithmetic. Instead, it managed just one seat, reinforcing a recurring lesson in Bengal politics: visibility does not necessarily translate into electoral viability.

“People come to rallies with emotion, but votes are cast with fear and calculation. If people feel their vote might help the BJP, they step back,” said Naushad Siddiqui, the ISF’s lone MLA.

The Furfura Sharif shrine, linked to Siddiquis, in Hooghly remains a potent site of political signalling, but allegiance there has historically been fluid, often dissolving once electoral choices narrow.

The debate has returned with Kabir’s rebellion against the TMC leadership. His criticism of the party’s "pro-Hindu optics", the announcement of a Babri Masjid replica and the launch of the Janata Unayan Party have injected fresh volatility into Bengal’s pre-poll atmosphere.

"I am not dividing votes; I am raising voices that have been suppressed,” said Kabir, whose rallies in Murshidabad have drawn sizeable crowds, tapping into grievances over representation and perceived marginalisation. He has spoken of contesting over 135 seats and keeping channels open with the Left, the ISF and the AIMIM.

A CPI(M) leader said enthusiasm, without cadres, polling agents and booth-level machinery, rarely survives till polling day.

The BJP argues that identity-driven mobilisations sharpen polarisation and consolidate Hindu votes, a dynamic it believes works to its advantage in multi-cornered contests.

Analysts broadly identify three structural deficits that blunt such mobilisations: the absence of statewide organisation, lack of credible cross-community appeal and weight of political memory among voters.

Social researcher Sabir Ahamed noted that Bengal has not produced a universally accepted Muslim mass leader since Congress stalwart A B A Ghani Khan Choudhury.

“There is no minority leader today with a pan-Bengal appeal and both organisational depth and governing clout. Without that, religious mobilisation remains fragile,” he said.

The minority electorate also carries a long political memory. Before Independence, Muslims were divided among the Congress, Krishak Praja Party and the Muslim League. After partition, Muslims moved to the Congress, then to the Left, and later to the TMC, driven less by theology than by political security.

That logic continues to shape voting behaviour, with minority support for the TMC coinciding with its emergence as the strongest bulwark against the BJP in Bengal.

“Muslims here have seen what vote-splitting did in other states. That fear acts as a deterrent,” Ahamed said.

Dissent and churn do surface in minority-dominated pockets. But as polling nears, arithmetic tends to reassert itself.

State minister Firhad Hakim claimed minorities know only TMC can stop the BJP.

“In Bengal, charisma talks, arithmetic decides. Until a Muslim-led formation offers organisation, cross-community appeal and governing capacity, such mobilisations will shape narratives, not outcomes,” Islam said.

As leaders rise and debates churn, the minority vote, older than the noise around it, settles where arithmetic, not rhetoric, still decides survival.