Mamata Banerjee is rattled by the BJP’s rising popularity in West Bengal. But she is still strong, and it will take more to dislodge her
The election to the West Bengal Assembly is scheduled for 2016, but preparations have already begun with the political parties positioning themselves. How else can you explain the present open fight between the BJP and the ruling Trinamool Congress in Parliament and outsideIJ BJP president Amit Shah made the fact that West Bengal is on the horizon of the BJP clear, when he took over.
While Ms Mamata Banerjee was quite contended after a spectacular victory in the 2011 Assembly poll and was happy to see the slide of the left parties as well as the shrinking of the Congress, she is now faced with the problem of a rising BJP. Once in power, the Trinamool started its turf domination programme and dealt with any opposition severely. This is now backfiring on the Trinamool. Ms Banerjee initially saw the rise of the BJP as a temporary phenomenon. The party had never been a force in Bengal politics traditionally as it had only some influence in a few pockets. As recently as 2009, the BJP in Bengal was struggling hard to even enroll new members.For the first time, it won two lok Sabha seats in the State and its vote share jumped to 17 per cent from just six per cent in the 2009 poll. But Ms Banerjee was riding high. While 60 per cent of the Opposition votes was divided among the left Front, the Congress and the BJP, it was the support of 28 per cent Muslims votes that helped her to improve the TMC’s seat-share from 19 per cent to 34 per cent.
What made her sit up and take note of the BJP was the subsequent victory in the by-election when the BJP opened its account in the West Bengal Assembly. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP chief have made it clear that their target is to storm the Assembly in 2016. The next two steps will be to do well in the ensuing corporation elections and then the 2016 polls. To fulfill this objective, the BJP has already started micro-management. It has identified some campaign issues including the Saradha scam, mis-governance, non -development, decline in law-and-order and links with the jihadi groups. Riding high on the Modi wave, the party has set an ambitious target of enrolling one crore new members by March. It has inducted 1.5 lakh people in West Bengal and many of them are from the CPI(M). The party has trained 50 State-level leaders, who in turn will train another 100 newly inducted BJP members at the district-level who will then go and spread the message of the BJP’s ideology in wards and at the panchayat level in villages.
Ms Banerjee, on the other hand, is all set to confront the BJP at two levels. At the national level she responded to the Congress’s invitation for Jawaharlal Nehru’s 125th birth anniversary this month by attending it in Delhi. This was part of her efforts to join the anti-BJP group. She is now willing to even join hands with the Congress, the erstwhile Janata parivar and the left.
The echo can be heard in the current Winter Session of Parliament, with the Trinamool Congress leading the attack on the Modi Government. Although the Congress has the largest number of seats in the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP is in a minority, it has left it to the TMC and others to lead the attack on the Government. The left, the TMC and the Janataparivar have a cumulative strength of around 50 MPs in the Rajya Sabha. With the support of the 67-member Congress group, the Government will find it difficult to push through legislation in the Upper House.
At the State level, she has decided to hit the streets. launching a counter-offensive against the BJP and the CBI, she has gone back to what she is best — street-and-confrontational politics. Amidst cheers from her thousands of supporters Ms Banerjee thundered from the Netaji Indoor Stadium this week, “Our fight against political vendetta has started. They have attacked us, we will reply politically.” This will continue until 2016.
Though the BJP has made some progress in improving its base, it is still not in a position to take full advantage of the growing distrust among the people in the Trinamool Congress. Ms Banerjee’s support base at the rural level is intact. It is not enough for the BJP to depend on Mr Modi's charisma and the RSS’s organisational ability. The BJP has to find a credible Bengali face to lead the party in the State.
The next acid test will be the civic corporation election coming year. Then comes the final test of the 2016 election. Will Ms Banerjee be able to regain the lost ground or will the BJP repeat its recent successesIJ