Limiting the aggressive polarisation on the ground and being able to consolidate the subaltern Hindu vote was the turning point
The Trinamool Congress’s historic win in the West Bengal Assembly elections has surprised everybody irrespective of their politics. The results show that there was a huge wave right under our nose and that the media, for reasons best known to itself, didn't bother to cover it. But, for reasons as we shall discuss here, the BJP failed miserably-not just in terms of the final numbers that popped up on our screens on the 2nd of May, but also in terms of its strategy and the way it ran its entire campaign. It never seemed as if the BJP was fighting a battle like a national party in keeping with its stature. Arrogance, hatred, chauvinism and classic patriarchy characterised its campaign strategy.
In retrospect, the elections were fought broadly on two major themes — identity and symbols. The identity of larger-than-life politicians, religious identity and the regional identity of West Bengal and its culture were major political tools used in course of the campaign. While the BJP was projecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself as the face of ‘Asol Poribartan’ (Real Change) that would usher in an era of ‘Sonar Bangla’ (Golden Bengal), chief minister Mamata Banerjee was banking on her identity as the daughter of Bengal using slogans such as ‘Bangla Nijer Meyekei Chaye’ (Bengal wants its own daughter) and ‘Mamata Didi arek bar’ (Elder Sister Mamata one more time).
On the one hand, the BJP aggressively promoted hard-core nationalism and its vision of ‘Ram Rajya’ and ‘Akhand Bharat’ as its major political goals, TMC, on the other, was successful in portraying the Bengali identity effectively. It was unambiguously clear to the average voter on the ground that while the BJP was trying to push forpolarization on the lines of religion, it was the Trinamool Congress that had effectively used the Bengali identity and the culture of Bengal to unite everyone. This probably clinched the major win for her party.
Limiting the aggressive polarisation on the ground and being able to consolidate the subaltern Hindu vote share was the turning point in this election. Another clash where the TMC was able to secure a win over the BJP was on the most important question - Didi vs. Who? We have seen this being effectively used by BJP itself during the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections when the party repeatedly asked the question - If not Modi, then who? Regional parties have picked it up and have ever since used it effectively. It happened in Delhi when Arvind Kejriwal was the face of Aam Aadmi Party and now in West Bengal with Mamata Banerjee as the chief ministerial face of TMC. The void on the other side of the political space, in all of these respective elections, left the voter with no other choice but to vote for the party with a strong local/regional leader. The lack of a strong local leader with a political identity of his/her own, made the BJP a second choice in the mind of the Bengali voter. Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah in frequent tours to different parts of the state, ironically, kept on addressing their rallies in Hindi before a Bengali audience. This did not resonate well with the linguistic identity of Bengal and the language movement that Bengal has fought of its own.
Ever since the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, the BJP had started using resources at its disposal at a furious pace to infuse ‘Hindutva’ agenda by using its IT cell, party cadres on the ground and the RSS,making elections in Bengal highly polarised and communal. The dream of a Hindu Rashtra and Aryavrata was propagated via door-to-door campaigning by party leaders in every village. These agendas were later reaffirmed by national leaders like Modi and Shah in their rallies attended mostly by Hindus.
Out-sized flags containing symbols of Om, Lord Hanuman and Lord Ram were put up in every other street so that voters’ minds could be allured till the last moment when they went out to vote. This paid dividends to the BJP to some extent in 2019. However, this time around, Mamata Banerjee responded by using her share of symbols, heavily emphasising on local tradition, ethnicity and culture. She travelled across the state reciting Chandi Path in Jan Sabhas and projected herself as Mahisasur Mardini (Durga), who is born to finish the evil from the society, despite being partially handicapped and weak as she was after her leg injury. In every Jan Sabha Mamata was seen playing football with the audience - a sport religiously followed in Bengal. She efficiently used public figures like Rabindranath Tagore, Subhash Chandra Bose, Raja Ram Mohan Roy and others like them to showcase how her government has spent both human resources and money to show to the world how proud they are of their people, their achievements and their identity.
Prime Minister and Home minister’s consistent presence in huge rallies at a time when Covid-19 was rearing its deadly head a second time in India crumbling the already weak health infrastructure gave rise to a wave of criticism. The priority of the central government was left wide open for everyone to see. It was as if everyone could see clearly for the first time how during a national crisis each and every institution of the central government was working for BJP in West Bengal to further the party’s electoral aspirations. The ruthlessness with which this was transpiring while citizens lost their loved ones to the virus created a strong anti-Modi narrative on the ground. The voters perhaps concluded that the Central Government was negligent in exposing millions of people to risk in West Bengal during the elections that were inordinately extended to eight phases.The impact of this anger can be seen even in the results wherein in the last the phase the Trinamool Congress won 90 out of 114 seats. That was at a strike rate of 79 per cent.
West Bengal is a lesson for the BJP to stop being arrogant, overconfident and dismissive and, instead, focus on issues that matter to the people. It is also a ray of hope for several other political parties that are aiming to fight the BJP. It is also good news for the average Indian citizen who believes in the idea of India that its founding fathers had envisaged. It indeed is true that what ‘Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow’.
(Tiwary is from the National Law University, Visakhapatnam. Mishra is from the National Law University, Odisha. The views expressed are personal.)
