BJP's Bengal Bandh was bound to be insignificant. Here's why
One of the first steps Mamata Banerjee took, after coming to power, was abolishing state-sponsored “bandhs”, a legacy of Left rule. There’s a running joke that Banerjee increased the number of state holidays, especially for religious festivals of different communities, to balance out the number of effective working days increased because bandhs were eliminated. This move was a significant signal for changing the work culture in the state.
To her credit, Mamata Banerjee has followed this decision without exception. Thus, despite her greater involvement in national politics, her party stayed away from the recent Opposition-sponsored Bharat Bandh on September 10, organised in protest against rising petrol and diesel prices.
Hence, the BJP should not have had any illusion about the prospects of the Bangla Bandh it organised yesterday. BJP leaders and the high command in Delhi should have known that it would, at best, be a symbolic exercise with little impact in most parts of the state. Not surprisingly, therefore, barring a few sporadic incidents in some parts of central Bengal, where the BJP has made some inroads and a few pockets in and around Kolkata, the bandh was generally uneventful.
However, political observers nationally have been long speculating about whether West Bengal will be the next frontier of the BJP’s expansionist strategy for 2019. This bandh would not have made them any the wiser.
Over the last five years, the BJP has made a number of false starts and non-starts in West Bengal. The party’s strategy has been both inconsistent and unsure. It has been more a case of one-step-forward and two-steps-back.
Some attribute the “now on, now off” approach to the BJP top leadership’s uncertain assessment of Mamata Banerjee. With her innate political instinct, she has kept the Modi-Shah duo guessing. This, BJP and TMC watchers think, has also been reflected in the blow-hot, blow-cold approach of the CBI and the ED on Saradha and other investigations.
Though over the years the RSS has expanded its presence in a number of districts, the BJP’s state leadership has been unimpressive. After trying a few change of faces, the BJP central leadership finally concluded that, “what you do not have, you must acquire”.
This was the Assam model.
But here, there was no "Pidi" to push a Bengali version of Himanta Biswa Sarma to the BJP’s lap.
Besides, Mamata Banerjee is no Tarun Gogoi. Though at some point, it seemed almost certain that Mukul Roy would cross over with some other TMC leaders to the BJP, Banerjee was able to scuttle any internal revolt or defection with the deft political handling of a charismatic leader, who has her fingers firmly on the pulse of the state.
Finally, after an extended courtship — some say, protracted negotiations — Mukul Roy joined the BJP, a few months ago.
Roy’s entry was low-key. Probably because Amit Shah did not wish to disturb the existing satraps and the RSS in the state by inducting a rank outsider. Though Mukul has, of late, become more vocal and visible, he is still working more in the background and at the grassroots. He has been assigned the task of building the electoral organisation for the party, which has been his forte and claim to fame in the TMC.
Meanwhile, between 2014 and now, there has been a seismic shift on the ground.
At the time of the last Lok Sabha elections, the BJP was riding in West Bengal on essentially two factors. The first was the rise in the “non-Bengali” population the state. This comprised early settlers — essentially from Rajasthan who form the majority of the trading community and migrant workers from the neighbouring states of Bihar and Jharkhand. The second was the Modi wave which helped in consolidation (mind you, not polarisation) of the Hindu vote and swing the middle-class moderate Hindu voters towards the BJP.
Both these elements reflected in the sharp increase of the BJP vote-share in 2014.
Babul Supriyo’s freak victory from Asansol can be attributed to the “non-Bengali” population in the coal belt moving solidly towards the BJP. But, in other areas, even a combination of the two factors was not enough to take the BJP first past the post. Still, it certainly made it a rising force in West Bengal, with the decimation of the Left and the terminal decline of the Congress in the state.
Since then, much water has flown down the Hooghly and the Modi wave has all but dissipated.
The business and trading community of all hues are disenchanted with the BJP’s policy and performance at the centre.
The urban middle-class is now more skeptical about the Modi-Shah leadership and what it augurs for the nation.
This has radically changed the state of play, requiring the BJP to revisit its electoral strategy, just as it has to do in the rest of the country. Even in West Bengal, the BJP cannot depend on middle-of-the-road Hindu voters to make a dent any longer.
If there is any anti-incumbency building up, it is in deep rural areas.
In certain parts of rural Bengal, there is a sense of déjà vu of the Left Front era when not even a leaf moved in the villages against the will of the local party bosses. This may cause creeping discontent and resentment which was, perhaps, noticed during the recent Panchayat elections.
The BJP sees an opportunity in these cracks — especially in the districts where communal demographics have sharply changed in recent years. But such a strategy will hinge on playing the polarisation card unabashedly.
Therefore, in yesterday's bandh, one heard the BJP State President raise the “Jai Shree Ram” cry, which was missing in the run-up to 2014. With this comes a new layer of language chauvinism — Urdu versus Bengali. Of course, the final salvo will be raising the Bangladeshi angle with all the talk of NRC.
In the last few days, there has been talk about one of the last remaining Congress leaders of the state, Adhir Chowdhury, walking over to the BJP. Chowdhury has a strong base in the Muslim-dominant Murshidabad region bordering Bangladesh. Thus, in a way, he will be another acquisition like Mukul Roy for Amit Shah.
The BJP doesn’t have much to lose in Bengal. But how much it can gain from a muscular strategy is difficult to predict at this stage.
How the scenario unfolds in the coming months will also depend on to what extent the BJP plays the Hindutva and Ram Mandir cards nationally, along with following through on the NRC process in neighbouring Assam. These will no doubt have a huge spillover effect in Bengal.
As I have have maintained in my previous columns in DailyO, Mamata Banerjee remains firmly in control.
She is unarguably the greatest mass leader the state has produced and her core constituency remains solidly behind her.
The BJP is aware of that, and may simply be trying to keep her engaged in Bengal. While there is no imminent threat to her party, any major precipitation will affect her image nationally.
So, it does put a huge onus on Mamata Banerjee to maintain equilibrium in the state. She has a lot at stake. But she is too sharp a politician to let the situation slip from her hand.
She knows her best days are yet to come.