Bengal BJP leader and MLA Shankar Ghosh has expressed concerns about the changing demographic pattern of the State which is throwing a decisive impact on the voting pattern and election results.
In a recent post he has wondered whether the BJP lost in a number of seats on account of the changing demographic equations.
Ghosh has put forward the BJP's defeat at Cooch Behar seat in North Bengal as a test case. Former Union Minister Nishith Pramanik had lost from Cooch Behar in the recently concluded general elections.
According to Ghosh there are 2043 polling booths in Cooch Behar constituency. Out of them there are 160 booths from where the winning Trinamool Congress candidate Jagadish Chandra Basunia got little more than 1.06 thousand votes whereas the BJP polled about 6,000 votes leaving a gap of about 1 lakh between the two parties.
On the other hand in the remaining 1843 booths the BJP polled 60,000 more votes than the TMC. "The equation left the BJP trailing by 40,000 votes," Ghosh said, wondering whether a time had come to study the changing demographic patterns of various constituencies.
He also said that Cooch Behar is just a test case and there are several other areas where similar concentration of voters of a particular community had led to similar results. One such seat could be Jadavpur where the residents of Bhangar, a minority-dominated Assembly traditionally vote en masse and for a particular political party often providing the winner a lead of more than 1 to 1.50 lakh votes. "A time has come when the party should consider this changing demographic pattern while considering the election results," he said.
Meanwhile in a parallel development the BJP has constituted a four-member committee led by former Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb to inquire into the post poll violence in Bengal.
Other members in the committee are former Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, Kavita Patidar and Brijlal. The committee would submit its reports to BJP national president JP Nadda, party national general secretary Arun Singh said adding Bengal unlike other States was witnessing relentless violence post general elections much like the one that took place after the 2021 Assembly elections that necessitated the visit of National Human Rights Commissions members to the State.
Referring to the Bengal bound saffron committee TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said that the BJP was trying to hide its face behind the "curtain of violence." He said, "they cannot explain the reason of the humiliating loss they suffered --- because of their poor performance --- in the elections so they are trying to create the façade of violence … they are still denying that they have been rejected outright by the people of Bengal."
Another TMC leader said that while the BJP was trying to provide an excuse for their defeat and divert the people's attention from defeat to violence they should in fact look into the state of affairs in Tripura.
"They are sending former Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb who has single-handedly decimated the opposition parties in that State … they won 94 percent of municipal seats uncontested … and a large number of their opposition leaders and workers have either fled that State or are spending their nights in forests … this is the kind of democracy that is in work in Tripura and they are teaching us lessons in democracy," he said.
