With Shah’s whirlwind tour and the State chief’s aggressive rhetoric, the BJP is desperate to win a State that is worrying it still

The BJP is desperate about Bengal for more than one reason. First, it sees it as a liberal and intellectual outpost that has been its ideological polarity, and having made significant inroads in the last Lok Sabha election, it now wants the glory of a conquest. Second, along with Odisha, Bengal has been a vanguard of the East that has so far resisted the “One India” swamp. Third, the BJP wants to prove that when it comes to poll arithmetic, it has a winnable formula, one that can even override the cultural opposition to it. Finally, it wants to decimate the only leader who has stood up to its power duo of Modi-Shah on equal terms and has the fire power to take on the BJP juggernaut — Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. While the BJP’s hunger to chase Mission Bengal and the concomitant rhetoric and war cry are understandable, does it have to plummet to the depths of threatening violence? That’s what State BJP chief Dilip Ghosh seems to suggest with his crass remark that those opposing a fair verdict or intimidating voters would find themselves either with broken bones or at the crematorium. Yes, each political party has institutionalised muscle power since the Left rule, with the State BJP not immune to it either, and mischief-making recruits have been changing camps according to the trade winds. But this is not just an obnoxious scare tactic aimed at TMC cadres, thick-skinned as they have been in the face of Left intimidation over the years, or an attempt to bolster the party’s agenda of fighting lawlessness in the State. It is a bone-chilling warning to every voter, decided or undecided, that there would be consequences and that it would be safe to side with the Central party. Ghosh’s statements almost confirm the certainty of a bloodbath and only prove the restlessness of the BJP which still cannot discount the popular appeal of Mamata and her carpet-bombing of Bengal’s emotions. Ghosh may have been allowed his rabble-rousing ways because the BJP is having to work the ground despite a favourable tide in the Lok Sabha polls. And by claiming victimhood in a “reign of terror” early on in the campaign, it is justifying the need for violence as defence as part of its propaganda. For its house is not quite in order. That’s why Home Minister Amit Shah made Bengal his first stop after his COVID recovery. There is internal dissension between the original BJP cadres and TMC rebel imports over the quantum of importance that each should get. While the original party workers are gung-ho about a Centrist push to the campaign, the turncoats are wary of Bengal’s anti-Right ethos and are not being able to commit to the party’s hegemonic planks. This is one of the reasons why Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to inaugurate a Durga Puja and prize Bengal’s religious tradition despite carrying the aura of having concretised the Ram temple at Ayodhya. Shah’s visit was intended to bridge these differences and fight unitedly because, unlike the Congress and other Opposition parties, the TMC is a closely knit, cadre-based party. The BJP is pitching its campaign on the TMC’s “politicisation of institutions”, particularly the police, but that is yet to cut ice given the record of its own autocratic methods in States it already governs. Its minority appeasement plank against Mamata and her COVID management have been blunted by the Bengal leader’s new-found maturity in matters religious, her smooth conduct of the Durga Puja and arresting the pandemic spiral better than projected scenarios. Besides, after years of nurturing and solidifying its votebase in North Bengal, and investing its lot with the Gorkhaland movement, the BJP lost its key man and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leader Bimal Gurung as he jumped ship and declared support to Mamata. Though the party may try to play down his exit, the fact is the Gorkha voter will listen to Gurung in the end.

With such hurdles cropping up just six months before the elections, Shah, therefore, has come down to mathematical certainty and is working on consolidating the tribal and Dalit vote in the State. This is necessary to hold voters from 2019, who had given the BJP commanding position in 143 of the 294 Assembly seats. With his lunch diplomacy at a tribal home, Shah laid the ground rule for BJP’s roadmap to transfer votes in its favour. Bengal’s Dalit population stands at 1.85 crore, of which 80 lakh are Matuas, who are settlers and have a sizeable influence in Assembly seats in border districts. And although they threw in their lot with the BJP last year, they feel short-changed by it on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register for Citizens (NRC), none of which helps their refugee status. The CAA has no provision for citizenship to those who didn’t apply to Foreigners Regional Registration Offices upon their arrival in India. Even the NRC demands pre-1948 legacy documents to prove their domicile status. In contrast, Mamata has moved in fast, granting land rights unconditionally to refugee families. She further allotted Rs 10 crore and Rs 5 crore grant for the Matua Development Board and Namashudra Development Board respectively. She even fast forwarded the process of issuing caste certificates to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and backwards to two weeks. The trouble is Mamata is getting increasingly caught up in a reactive game with the BJP when she could do well to highlight some of her own big ticket achievements rather than holding off her rival with tit-for-tat. For she has to answer for her development story and battle anti-incumbency. That response has to be louder than the noise the BJP wants to deafen her with.