BJP in Bengal: Inconsistent and incoherent

In public perception, the use of central agencies and institutions, which the BJP government at the Centre controls, contradicts its claims to victimhood

Its inconsistencies make it appear almost politically incoherent. However, to conclude that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 's moves would add up to an organisation that has lost its way because the leadership is distracted is virtually impossible to contemplate. Its reputation of being a lavish well-oiled fighting machine and with a superb command and control hierarchy must, axiomatically, nullify that impression.

But looking at its ad hoc decisions in other states and comparing it to the narrative and tactics of the BJP and its factions in Bengal in its effort to trash the Mamata Banerjee government, it does seem as though the party is rudderless. Its insistence that Banerjee, elected for a third term with a convincing mandate, is an illegitimate chief minister because the BJP's Suvendu Adhikari defeated her from Nandigram did not cut it with the public.

After Uttarakhand's third attempt at finding a suitable chief minister in four months because Tirath Singh Rawat was ineligible as he was not an elected state legislator, the BJP's exercise in challenging the status of Banerjee is ridiculous.

The incoherence is in the BJP's actions. It applies one yardstick to measure the validity of its own decisions and uses an entirely different one to measure the actions of its opponents, seen from the perspective of West Bengal.

When Adhikari, named in two separate scams, the Saradha Chit Fund case and the Narada sting operation, both under probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation, visits the Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta, who is also the CBI's counsel, the BJP and Adhikari swing into damage control mode.

That the visit would be seen by sceptics and critics as "influencing the investigation" was a foregone conclusion. The BJP and Adhikari forgot that the same 'use of influence' argument was used by the party to demand the locking up of two Trinamool Congress ministers, one MLA and one ex-BJP now edging towards the Trinamool.

The incoherence and inconsistency become glaring over the BJP's favourite demand – the immediate imposition of President's Rule under Article 356 in Bengal and the dismissal of the Banerjee government, sworn in two months ago, on May 5. The party is consistent in condemning violence and holding the Banerjee government responsible for failing to bring it under control. The BJP, however, overlooks the targeted violence by vigilantes against cattle traders from the Muslim community, as happened recently in Moradabad. The party instead applauds the police for arresting four people involved in the assault and the victim.

The BJP's exercise in creating a narrative of victimhood in Bengal has not garnered it the sympathy it needs to convert it into support. The reason is it is not perceived as a victim in the state. Incidents like Moradabad and Hathras have already prepped informed voters that the BJP is not an innocent victim of violence; its supporters elsewhere are capable of using violence to deliver a political message. The other thing that undermines the BJP's victim image is the heavy weaponry deployed against the newly elected government. In public perception, the use of central agencies and institutions, which the BJP government at the Centre controls, contradicts its claim to victimhood.

By pursuing this campaign, the party has eroded its efficacy as the only elected opposition. The party's latest move is to complain that the Centre is ineffectual because it has declined to act on the evidence, endorsed by Governor JP Dhankar, of the political violence directed against the BJP. It has said the Banerjee government has failed to contain the violence by curbing the police from acting on the complaints lodged by the party. It has argued that this is a case of breakdown of constitutional machinery and justifies the imposition of President's Rule. However, this has not been convincing enough to turn it into a victim.

To be convincing, at least in public perception, the BJP has to sort out the divergent views of the different factions visibly at loggerheads in the party's Bengal unit. The open differences and turf wars have reached a point where the state party boss, Dilip Ghosh, went on record stating that there is a unified command structure in the BJP.

At a training camp for newly elected legislators, most of whom elected for the first time, it was striking that the leader of the opposition in the Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, was missing. Some party leaders believe that the demand for President's Rule and dragging in the governor undermines the local capacity to politically respond to violence and
victimisation of supporters by the Trinamool Congress. The overuse of the Centre, its institutions and its agencies, including the National Human Rights Commission that sent a team to investigate complaints of violations, has compromised the local leadership's capacity to protect its flock.

The effect of the differences in strategy within the Bengal BJP is converting the political space into a pressure cooker. For everyday politics to resume, with its usual load of tensions and face-offs, protests and pushbacks, the BJP has to figure out how to control the heat it piles on against the Trinamool Congress.

Volatile as West Bengal's politics has been in the past, restoring normalcy and then creating a new normal of peaceful politics is not the job of Banerjee alone. The BJP has to figure out how it plans to survive the next few years in the state, to begin with, as the principal opposition and then as the party in waiting, for which it needs to stop floundering.

Playing victim in Bengal will not serve the larger purpose of winning the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and giving Narendra Modi a third term. The party has already initiated gearing up the organisation and oiling the machinery for the General elections.

Even though the BJP lost in the recently concluded Assembly election, Bengal is a territory it needs to add to remain in power at the Centre. To do so, it needs to redesign its state strategy, resolve the internal conflicts that look ready to break out into an open war between factions and convince voters that it is an alternative, something it failed to do in the just concluded elections.

(The writer is a Kolkata-based senior journalist.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.