What Bengal thinks today, India thinks later is an adage from the days of the Raj. Whether this will hold true in Indian polity is for time to tell. The great BJP political juggernaut that had been rolling since 2014 under the duopoly of MoSha has ground to an abrupt halt in the plains of Bengal. Will it be that this is a temporary bump on its way before it picks up steam again in the cow belt heartlands before general elections or is this the beginning of the end, only a soothsayer par excellence would venture an answer. For our part let us look at the drama that unfolded in Bengal and some of the learning from thence.
Bengal has a legislative assembly of 294 legislators and sends as many as 42 Lok Sabha MPs. Behind UP with 80 and Maharashtra with 48, Bengal thus has the highest bloc of LS seats. Consequently, for BJP that is a huge incentive for their plans of the continued dominance of the national polity. Without a proper foothold in state politics, you cannot do much in terms of national politics is something that BJP has found in its long stint in the opposition in its current and previous avatar of Jan Sangh. Further Mamata Banerjee and her Trina Mool Congress (TMC) have often acted as a rallying point for other parties against it. True, such attempts have not borne fruit as of now, due to continual opposition disharmony. Mamata and her quiet counterpart from Odisha Naveen Patnaik are two people who can seriously challenge the perennial tirade of BJP that there is no credible challenger of the leadership of Narendra Modi. Naveen babu being in the NDA camp and not having displayed any national aspiration as yet the primary focus, therefore, has been on Mamata and trying to crush the challenge she could represent in days to come.
The success of the party in the 2019 general election in Bengal had given the BJP a lot of expectations towards its prospects in the assembly elections this time. What with increasing faith in the party from the populace, the organized cadre of BJP and its spine the RSS putting its weight behind the election process, the deep financial pockets of the party, and most importantly the charisma of MoSha duopoly that has rolled opposition after opposition, things seemed stacked in the favor of the ruling party. A slew of defections from the TMC of high profile and not so high-profile candidates through the season leading up to elections further seemed to be bolstering the chances of BJP to steal into Vidhan sabha.
The party buckled up and threw in its might into the election process. The IT cell under Amit Malviya belched out tweets and videos of propaganda, information, and misinformation to bolster the narrative that BJP was for sure the party to reckon with this time around. In fact, 200 was the number of seats that they would be winning was portrayed as a foregone conclusion. “Uneeshe half, ekushe saaf” that is half the seats in 19, completely wipe out in 21, was a narrative that the party had been building up on since the 2019 general elections. The 200 plus narrative was harped on by every star campaigner whether that be union ministers like Rajnath Singh, and Smirti Irani, the poster boy Yogi Adityanath or the three heavyweights Modi, Shah, and BJP president J P Nadda. The idea was to create a resonance amidst the populace by spelling the same message by the heavyweight campaigners Modi Shah and Nadda. It was planned that Modi alone would address 20 rallies while Shah planned a half century of a rallies and roadshows in the run up to the elections, such was the planned carpet bombing from these 2 heavy weights. Popular cine star Mithun Chakraborty and a slew of Tollywood and TV celebrities joined up the party just before the election and put their weight behind the party. An adaptation of belle ciao was picked up as the anthem to counter the left’s catchy tumpa sona and TMCs combative Khela hobe
So what went wrong in this supposedly foolproof plan of dominance. There were several things that the BJP failed to put its finger on while planning and executing mission Bengal. One of the biggest draws of BJP over the years has been the charisma of Modi and Shah in the election, and with the bet on the two to deliver even in Bengal, there were no strong local leaders who could hold the stage along or in the absence of these two. Mamata with the narrative of “banglar nijer meye”, i.e. Bengal’s own daughter posed a serious question as to who would be her challenger. The narrative that Modi holds about not having a challenger was countered by who would be Mamata’s challenger in Bengal. A question that BJP couldn’t answer. With a slew of defection from TMC to BJP of high profile leaders, the question as to who would lead and in faction fights between the old guard of BJP and the new entrants was always brewing. Modi with a Rabindranath look and in a mocking tone of catcalls while addressing rallies drew in claps from the rally-goers, but to the women and Bengalis inherent “bhadrolok” mentality both were abrasive.
A slew of defections of high-profile leaders like ex-ministers Suvendu Adhikari, Rajib Banerjee, and Sobhan Chatterjee seemed to bolster the ranks of the party. Yet during the poll time while announcing the names of candidates they had to rope in 3 sitting parliamentarians. Also, there was much discord since the candidates who were put up after defecting from TMC had no base in BJP. Further, the party cadre was unhappy about working for people who till recently were their opposition and they had accused of corruption. Consequently, there was much discord within the party rank and file regarding the nominations.
The ploy of the BJP was always to marginalize the electorate. They appealed to various factions whether that be Motuas or Santhals holding rallies at their strongholds, making promises of benefits, breaking bread at their house. But beyond these optics, the primary polarization that was targetted was of the Hindu Muslim divide. 37% of the electorate being Muslims, they targeted the Hindu majority while hoping there would be a fracture of the Muslim votes between TMC and the other opposition parties. However, this equation was majorly upset by the actions of the third front in this game. The Left front cobbled up a third front with congress and The ISF, a radical party fronted by Peerzada Abbas Siddiqui. This destroyed the secular credentials of the third front and the Muslims in fact banded together against their communal enemy BJP. In their strive to counter the polarizing effect of the BJP, they started a no vote for BJP campaign using the hashtag #novote4bjp. Bengal has traditionally not been a communally bipolar state. Muslims have been known to participate in Durga pujas, while Hindus enjoy the pleasure of biriyani and sheer khurmas at Eid with relish. In this mix the extreme polarization that the BJP was attempting to grab the majority Hindu vote misfired. The general populace was posed with a question as to who seemed to be a lesser evil. Mamata with a limited record of giving fair governance, good roads, populist schemes that they could see in the form of Kanyashree and Swastha Sathi or the untested BJP which threatened to split the state down its middle.
In this backdrop, elections were held over 8 phases and a rising corona wave. With Modi exalting unprecedented crowds who had no regard for covid protocols, the number of covid affected started to reflect. The novote4bjp seemed to gather momentum with no clarity of the vaccination protocols and covid numbers sharply peaking. Delhi and Mumbai leant a shadow of the possibility of probable days to come to Bengal as people gasped for oxygen and life-saving drugs and the center was caught napping and clueless in this fight against covid and seemed more focused on winning elections than the battle against covid. This probably acted as the last nail beside the sideshow of Mamata’s alleged injury which projected a wheelchair-bound lady fighting against the mighty BJP led by its 56″ inch commander. All this culminated to make Bengal chose what seemed to be a lesser evil. Bengal chose and chose with a vengeance giving TMC its highest ever poll percentage and highest ever seat tally, a whopping 213. But there can also be no denying that from 3 seats to 77 for BJP was also a stupendous achievement. But having set their battle cries at more than 200 and the might they put in behind the electioneering, 77 was a mighty disappointment for BJP. Modi’s battle cry to stamp on the lotus in Bengali as Padme Chap misfired onto pode chap sounding into something obscene and the election result seemed to reflect the expression
What this holds for the political space is for tomorrow to tell, but drama over the election and its results that was a nerve-wracking affair on 2nd May continues to spill over. That however is a tale for another day.
