Is Mamata Banerjee trying to beat BJP at its own game?

With the announcement of monthly allowance for poor Hindu priests in West Bengal and setting up a Hindi cell for the Trinamool Congress (TMC), West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee seems to be heading for uncharted territory in a bid to counter BJP.

While the move of providing an allowance to Hindu priests is aimed at wooing the majority community, setting up a Hindi cell for TMC is aimed at catering to the Hindi speaking voters in Bengal. BJP considers both as their traditional vote banks.

The Chief Minister on Monday announced that the state government will provide a monthly allowance of Rs. 1,000 to 8,000 Hindu priests in the state from October. The move seems to be a balancing game to counter BJP’s charge of “minority appeasement” against the TMC.

The development comes a day after BJP president J P Nadda alleged that “anti-Hindu mindset” and “appeasement” are the hallmark of Mamata’s politics.

After coming to power in 2011, the TMC government drew severe criticism from the Opposition parties for announcing monthly allowance for Imams. However, later the state government said that it would be provided by the Waqf Board of West Bengal.

The move is a deviaton from Mamata’s usual strategy against BJP. Normally, she seeks to label the saffron party as a “divisive and communal force” in contrast to TMC’s commitment to secularism. But it seems that with the rise of BJP in Bengal after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, she does not want to leave any stones unturned.

Mamata’s decision to set up a Hindi cell for TMC is aimed at eating into the BJP’s vote base among the Hindi speaking population in the state. According to sources in TMC, the party leadership noticed a lack of support from the Hindi speaking voters in the state since the 2016 Assembly elections.

Then in 2018, it tried to win them over with the then TMC MLA Arjun Singh who later joined BJP. But the move didn’t yield much success. It remains to be seen whether Mamata’s new strategy to beat BJP in its own game succeeds or backfires.