JOIN USIn Bengal politics, BJP takes up social issues
The Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party leaders observed June 20 as West Bengal Day: commemorating a 1947 resolution of the then Bengal Legislative Assembly, and the legislators who approved dividing the state into East and West Bengal. This had prevented the entire Bengal province from becoming a part of Pakistan.
The BJP is seen as the challenger in West Bengal politics, with the Trinamool Congress as the ruling party. With such clear-cut governing and opposing parties, West Bengal voters are used to polarised opinions on any issue. The leaders of TMC as well as the BJP keep exploring issues where the two parties’ differing political identities stay intact.
However, in West Bengal, the BJP has been attempting to explore the social issues of the region - unlike in the northern states, where issues concerning beliefs have remained in sync with the party’s national ideological commitments.
Ever since the BJP got a foothold at playing the Opposition’s part in the state, jobs, education, citizenship rights, refugees, funds for housing, health, ration system, attempts at illegal cross-border trade, and revisiting history have been the recurring themes.
Till the 2019 general elections, citizenship rights for the Hindu immigrants from Bangladesh remained a serious political concern for the BJP in the state. While it might have been perceived as religion-based elsewhere in the country, in West Bengal, refugee rights is a social issue that no political outfit rejects.
After the 2021 state elections, the BJP in the region focussed on ‘post-poll violence’. Again, this was a specific issue nowhere closer to the party’s national ideological ambitions.
Before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP’s minority morcha in Bengal actively campaigned against the triple talaq (instant divorce) practice prevalent in a section of Muslim society. This was projected as the BJP looking after the Muslim women’s rights.
Ever since the conclusion of the state Assembly elections last year, the BJP has become more focussed on social issues: jobs, irregularities in recruitment in state-aided schools, utilisation of government funds and ‘lawlessness’ that gives the opposition party a chance to point fingers at TMC.
While BJP leaders outside West Bengal may continue to have different lines of political thought, BJP leaders in the state, in the broader sense, seem to have focussed on issues specific to the region. In West Bengal, issues specific to economic necessities, as is evident in successive elections, are closer to the voter’s heart.