Battle for Bengal hots up
To most election observers, a glaring paradox of the anti-incumbency in West Bengal is that the condemnation of Trinamool Congress (TMC) is combined with a willingness to make allowances for its leader. It is a situation similar to what we saw in Bihar, where much of the anti-incumbency against Janata Dal (U) MLAs whittled down the appeal of Nitish Kumar in the state’s politics, but allowed him to continue for another term. As a two-term CM, fiercely fighting for a third, Mamata Banerjee seems to be occupying a vicarious moral high ground, due to her abstemious lifestyle and ability to connect with the poor.
This, despite the lavish and corrupt lifestyles of the TMC cadres and the lawlessness they have unleashed to neutralise the Opposition. Mamata, on her part, is mostly absolved of these misdemeanours. It is a public perception which has worked in TMC’s favour for the last 10 years. Besides, the still fiery leader is credited with the achievement of ousting the Communists from power.
Still, several questions are floating around. Will she meet the fate of the Communists? Can the BJP find acceptability in a state with such rich cultural values and liberal ethos? And who will be the winner in the no-holds-barred contest?
Mamata’s political success has been attributed to her endless pandering of identity politics. The 30-35 per cent Muslims, who make up the electorate, are her constant focus, as are the Dalit groups, the other backward classes and the Gorkhas. Indeed, Mamata has in a way replaced the class politics of the Communist parties with an identity politics of her own. There are chinks in this armour now: some of the Muslims have shifted allegiance to the Indian Secular Front, which has tied up with the Communists and the Congress, while the Bharatiya Janata Party has made inroads into the Dalit vote bank in certain areas.
The acknowledgement of erosion in support is evident in Mamata’s counter-strategy, in the face of a strong resource-laden BJP challenge, of whipping up Bengali nationalism, describing the rival party as a party of outsiders. She has tried to shake off the charge of Muslim appeasement by going the extra mile in displaying her Hindu credentials – but of a Hindu who is also a Bengali. Aided by election strategist Prashant Kishore, the TMC has projected itself as concerned with gender equity and social delivery.
The BJP first thought that its plank of religious nationalism was enough to deliver the state to it. After all, the BJP had bagged 18 out of the 42 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, accounting for 40 per cent of the votes, just a wee bit short of the TMC. It had started working on its Bengal strategy shortly after it came to power in 2014. It first sought to first corner Mamata by painting her as anti-Hindu. Top party leaders and Central ministers, led by Home Minister Amit Shah, barnstormed the state.
When the TMC leader came up with the plank of Bengali nationalism, the BJP changed gears and sought to weaken her by engineering a spate of high-profile defections from the TMC. While this bolstered the lacklustre leadership of the state BJP, it also created resentment among the party faithful, who had all along fought against these very leaders. The BJP’s failure to throw up a pan-state leader who could match Mamata, guile for guile, charisma for charisma, remains a big drawback.
It is only now, after the entry of Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the thick of campaigning, that the party is talking of development, or lack of development in the state. However, one still awaits a formal blueprint from the BJP on how it plans to revive the state’s economy. For this we may have to wait for the party’s election manifesto to be unveiled.
The BJP feels that it has been Bengal versus Delhi for a long time and the people now want the state to be in alignment with Delhi. Such an arrangement will function as a ‘double engine of development’. There are no clear indicators yet that Bengal’s voters will swallow this argument.
In the end, the election will be all about Didi. Her supporters fancy her as the incorruptible daughter of the soil. Her critics see her as the author of chaos and the state’s barrier to progress. Who will ultimately succeed? The outcome is important, for it will also have a bearing on the politics of the country in the coming years leading to the 2014 general elections. A triumphant BJP will get more imperious, while a victorious Mamata can galvanise the Opposition. Too much is at stake, as both sides jostle against each other to give it their best shot.