TMC, BJP in battle to capitalise on Bengali sentiment

West Bengal politics is increasingly getting dominated by a cultural war between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and BJP with both parties trying to project themselves as the champion of Bengali language and culture. BJP, usually dubbed by TMC as a party of the Hindi belt is keen on reminding the people that the founder of Jan Sangh ( which later morphed into BJP) Syama Prasad Mookerjee was from Bengal.

BJP’s new strategy of appealing to Bengali sentiment can be seen during the speeches of Prime Minister Narendra Modi since the last Lok Sabha elections where he spoke the first few lines in Bengali and then switched to Hindi.

The frequent reference to the luminaries of Bengal such as Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar in the speeches of the Prime Minister and Home Minister Amit Shah is also a clear indication of the saffron party’s shift in strategy.

According to state BJP sources, the party is keen on countering TMC’s “anti-Bengali” charge against it by upholding Bengali culture in the speeches of its leaders. Despite its record success of winning 18 seats in the state in the Lok Sabha elections the saffron party paid dearly following the vandalising of as statue of Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar in Kolkata last year during an election rally of Amit Shah on May 14, 2019. TMC latched on to the incident and successfully used it to label BJP as “anti-Bengali.” BJP failed to win a single seat out of nine seats which went to polls in the last phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Bengal.

“Although BJP trying to cling to the image of Syama Prasad Mookerjee to project itself as a party of Bengalis but it's effort has not yielded any significant result. BJP seems to be totally confused here,” Maidul Islam, political analyst and Centre for Studies in Social Sciences faculty member told DH.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee frequently refers to to the cultural heritage of Bengal and often quotes Tagore in her speeches, while the state government has increased the use of Bengali language in government signboards and advertisements.