West Bengal’s looming political war

It was a scene that couldn’t have been imagined back in 2016 when Mamata Banerjee was fresh from her resounding win in the West Bengal Assembly elections.

Thirteen years after he had helped Mamata make history during the 2007 Nandigram protests, her trusted lieutenant Suvendu Adhikari resigned as a Cabinet minister last week, and despite repeated public entreaties from senior leaders and a phone call from Mamata herself, refused to change his mind. The TMC was left with egg on its face, while the BJP awaited him with open arms. Adhikari has not revealed his destination yet, but this is exactly what makes the run-up to the 2021 Assembly polls in West Bengal a time of change and uncertainty.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) spectacular rise in the state from a fringe player with just two seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls to a massive 18 of 42 in the next general elections (its vote share went up from 17% to 40%), has set the stage for a grand contest between it and Mamata, the likes of which has not been seen before.

The BJP is using every trick in the book from engineering defections from the TMC and other parties to making sure it gets its message of communal polarisation across with the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). But then, the TMC is not sitting on its hands either.

Mamata’s hold on Bengal continues to be solid. She won 211 of 294 seats in the 2016 polls, and in terms of vote share, she remained way ahead of competition with close to 45 per cent. Her figures in the Lok Sabha polls (22 seats and approximately 44% of the vote) show that she is not in danger of being knocked out easily, and yet, the BJP’s rise has upset all known equations.

Mamata has projected herself as the biggest Opposition figure to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, not only in a bid to maintain her own cult of personality but also because the BJP has been relentless in targeting her.

Mamata’s latest salvo against the BJP, about joining the farmers’ stir against the three farm laws, is aimed at undermining Prime Minister Modi’s authority. This is important because the BJP believes Modi’s personal popularity will be a factor in the 2021 elections. Earlier, Mamata cast herself as the foremost champion of the anti-CAA and NRC movement, in a message that hers was the only party for the Muslims of the state. This may be changing now, given the challenge posed by Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), but that is another story. She has played the ‘insider versus outsider’ card to the hilt, casting the BJP as a party of the Hindi heartland and alien to Bengalis, in a bid to counter BJP’s religious polarisation tactics.

If political analysts are to be believed things can go either way in the polls. However, two key issues will make the difference: People and polarisation. And this is where the big fight lies.

Building in double-quick time

The BJP did not even have a proper organisation in Bengal till 2014. In order to build up its party structure in double-quick time, it has been wooing all manner of disgruntled TMC (and other party) MLAs, MPs and lower-rung leaders. Since 2019, seven sitting TMC MLAs, one MP and a large number of lower rung leaders have joined the BJP.

One of TMC’s biggest stars at one point, Mukul Roy, is now a starred general in the BJP side. Roy has been at the forefront of ‘recruiting’ others into the party since his arrival in 2017. Rumours about mass TMC defections to the BJP have been constant since the 2019 results and, if insiders are to be believed, then the BJP will continue in this attempt right till the end.

According to sources, a leader like Adhikari is crucial for the BJP because he is arguably the only person in the TMC, after Mamata, with a substantial mass base and organisational clout in at least 50 Assembly constituencies in several districts, including East Medinipur, Bankura, Murshidabad and Birbhum.

Other than keeping its flock together, the TMCs other organisational challenge has to do with the ‘hired’ election strategist Prashant Kishor, who is seen as a problem by some senior leaders who question his clout in ticket distribution. A final problem is the growing influence of Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, Abhishek, who is resented by a section of the leadership.

The biggest issue

But, arguably, the biggest issue in the Bengal polls is the politics of polarisation and whether or not it will succeed. BJP’s main targets are Hindu refugees who settled down in Bengal after crossing over from East Pakistan post Partition. It’s strategy is to woo the likes of the Dalit Matua community, who make up a population of three crores, with the promise of granting them proper citizenship under the CAA. BJP has alleged that Mamata is putting up obstructions to their Indian citizenship by opposing the CAA, but she welcomes illegal Muslim migrants as a means of consolidating her minority vote bank.

If it succeeds in its attempt, BJP may win a substantial number of seats especially in the border districts of Bengal such as North 24 Parganas and Nadia which have a large refugee population.

As far as Mamata’s tactics of painting the BJP as an ‘outsider’ goes, it carries its own set of problems. She runs the risk of creating an impression that she is resorting to the same polarising tactics that she has accused the BJP of. Then there is the AIMIM, which has emerged as a force to look out for with wins in Bihar’s Seemanchal, which is adjacent to areas in North Bengal with a large Muslim population. Amid all this, it remains unclear where the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) stands in the state. The CPM-Congress alliance is not even discussed as a factor in the polls.