Amit Shah may be a bigger problem for Mamata than the Left
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is under siege and the man laying the chakravyuh is BJP president Amit Shah. Shah spelt out his intentions at the BJP rally at Victoria House in Kolkata on Sunday: "I am Amit Shah.. I have come to uproot the Trinamool Congress from West Bengal". Elections in West Bengal are due only in the summer of 2016, but the battle has already begun.
Grassroots battle
Perhaps Shah used the word "uproot" deliberately, as Trinamool literally means "grassroots", and the grassroots is where the real battle between the BJP and the TMC is being fought. Under Shah, the BJP has launched an ambitious membership drive in West Bengal and its target is reaching one crore members in the state. To give you an idea of how big the BJP is aiming, its total national membership is pegged at a little over three crore. But more than nominal members, the BJP is trying to attract active cadres who will carry the party's flag on the ground and if needed, die for it.
Given the history of political violence in West Bengal, the bloodshed between the BJP and the TMC has already begun. In October end, three people were killed as clashes erupted between the BJP and the TMC in Birbhum. The violence is only going to get more intense in the months to come as every martyr will spark a spate of revenge killings. The Left, which built the foundations of political violence in the state, is nowhere to be seen. But in many cases, the TMC and BJP cadres involved in the violence were originally with the Left.
Money power
The primary driving force of the BJP's expansion drive in West Bengal is money. The party is throwing in funds that no other political force in the state, not even the ruling TMC, can match. Flush with funds, the BJP is weaning away disgruntled cadres from the Left, the TMC and the Congress. Every worker who defects from another party, is paid a handsome some of money and assured of "every kind of support" he needs to fight the TMC.
"Our workers want to fight on the ground. But they just cannot match the money power of the BJP. If things continue the way they are going, we or the Left front won't be able to stop the exodus of cadres to the BJP," a senior Congress leader from West Bengal laments.
The BJP's money power will become all the more evident in West Bengal as the party has begun launching a media blitzkrieg in the state. It is believed that the party is also preparing to launch a television channel in the state to counter pro-Trinamool TV channels such as Channel 10 and Kolkata TV.
The party has already begun hogging the media space in the state. On Sunday, Amit Shah's rally ruled the prime time on most channels and the next day occupied the front page and many of the inner pages in the regional papers. In the days to come, the BJP might just get an unchallenged run at prime time as the pro-Trinamool channels have been forced to lie low following the Saradha scam. Channel 10 was owned by the Saradha Group and its editor in chief used to be Kunal Ghosh, who has now been arrested in connection with the chit fund scam. The other arrested MP, Srinjoy Bose, used to be the editor of the daily Sangbad Pratidin.
Communal polarisation
If the Saradha scam preventing the TMC from going on a publicity offensive, it is further being pushed into a corner with the National Investigation Agency probe into the Burdwan blast. Even though there seem a lot of red herrings in the NIA probe, Shah hasn't shied away from accusing the TMC of being hand in glove with terror outfits.
Needless to say, the BJP is raking up the Burdwan probe to create some sort of a communal polarisation in Bengal. Ever since the BJP came to power in the Centre, the party has tried to portray TMC-ruled West Bengal as a hub of Islamic extremism. In a state where Muslims account for 27 per cent of the population, there are dividends to be won by creating a fear of Islamic radicalism and Bangladeshi immigration. It is no surprise that National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is taking active interest in the Burdwan probe.
But as of now, communal polarisation is only one element in the BJP's strategy in West Bengal, and not the dominant card unlike many other states. In fact, the party has been attracting Muslim cadres from the TMC and the Left. Three of the BJP workers allegedly killed in clashes with the Trinamool happen to be Muslim. In its efforts to reach out to the Muslims, the BJP has been showcasing its "three Muslim martyrs from Birbhum".
However, this more inclusive approach might not last for long as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is going to become more active in the BJP's West Bengal campaign. The backing for the Sangh's Bengal mission comes right from the top: Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat. On May 16, the day BJP swept the Lok Sabha elections, Bhagwat wasn't celebrating. He had already begun preparing for the Sangh's West Bengal mission. He was conducting a 20-day training session for his volunteers in West Bengal and his main message to them was to fight the TMC and its politics of minority appeasement. Between March 2013 and March 2014, the Sangh's presence in Bengal has increased by over 25 per cent: from 820 shakhas in March 2013 to 1010 a year later. The number is increasing every month. The main target of the Sangh are SCs and OBCs, whom they allege have been marginalised by the Left as well as the Trinamool. Accelerating the Hindutva drive in the state, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is holding a Virat Hindu Sammelan in Kolkata Shaheed Minar on December 20 and as if to underline West Bengal's importance in the Sangh's scheme of things, Bhagwat will be addressing the Sammelan.
Arithmetic
The BJP is believes it will succeed in West Bengal and ironically, the reason for its optimism is its adversary Mamata Banerjee. By breaking the 34-year-old Left citadel in 2011, Mamata proved that no party is invincible. Observing the rapid decline of the Left after its defeat and the desertion of its once loyal cadres, the BJP believes that it can do to Mamata what she did to the Communists. And the BJP's success in the Basirhat Dakshin bypoll in September this year has emboldened it. Its candidate Samik Bhattacharya won the seat, defeating his TMC rival by a narrow margin of 1,586 votes. But the significant part was that the BJP's vote share increased from 3.91 per cent in 2011 to 37.43 per cent in 2014. The seat used to be a Left Front citadel which the CPI (M) had been winning since 1977. Bhattacharya had put up a good show in the Lok Sabha elections from Basirhat, where he grabbed 18.36 per cent of the vote. Incidentally, the TMC, Congress and CPI(M) had all fielded Muslim candidates, a feature that might be repeated in many seats in the 2016 Vidhan Sabha elections.
Shah is weaving an elaborate chakravyuh around Mamata, with some help from Bhagwat and Doval. But Mamata has already begun retaliating, with her MPs alleging that Shah's name figures in Sahara's red diary. From slanging matches between the two leaders to bloodshed on the ground, West Bengal will be a battleground for the next 18 months.