West Bengal has delivered a most decisive result with a landslide victory for Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress. She has secured a two-thirds majority with 213 seats and the other prime rivals, the BJP, limited to 77 seats. For the BJP, the journey from a mere three seats in the 2016 Assembly elections to the present 77 is noteworthy, but they were over-confident of ending the TMC rule, and in that context, they suffered a setback.
The primary fault of the Central BJP leadership was taking Mamata like any other leader in the other States of India. The Bengal CM had grown from the ranks and has been in the political scene for nearly fifty years. She has a firm connection to the roots of the electorate and talks their language. She is a sharp fighter, willing to take risks and to convert any adversity into an opportunity. None can excel her in these qualities today.
Mamata’s various development programs like the Kanyashree, Kishan Bandhan, Swasthya Sathi, among others, have all been a hit with the rural masses. Mamata has been a single counterbalance to the scores of cut money and corruption charges against her party men. People in Bengal largely believe that Didi is clean. Her humble living style is proof.
The second fault of the BJP was ignoring the Bengali, pride, its intellectuality and fiercely independent character. Bengalis believe that they are the best in arts and crafts, ‘kheladulo’- sports, education, and independence of thought. Netaji is their all-time icon for bravery, Tagore for literature and poetry, Sourav Ganguli for sports and Mithun their Hero. Perhaps the crowd swell for Mithun was misconstrued by the BJP leadership as a support to their party. For a Bengali, Mamata Banerjee was a mixture of all these, and she was a symbol of ‘Bangaliana’, the unique Bengalinesss.
Mamata did not curtail her campaigns for her leg injury, but the animal instinct in her exploited the situation. She portrayed her weakness as her strength. She rode in a wheelchair and remained in it until she won the elections. The taunt by a few BJP State leaders of her pretending an injury did not deter Mamata but evoked sympathy with her voters.
The third fault of the BJP was an over-reliance on outside leaders. Prime Minister Modi was portrayed more intensely in West Bengal than in any other State poll campaigns. For an average voter, the Modi and Amit Shah, the Union Home Minister, represented an alien culture from the distant north, speaking in Hindi in the poll rallies, incomprehensible in rural Bengal. The saffron rath yatras of the BJP were despised, for Bengal remembered the devastation such yatra had caused during the pre-Babri Masjid days. The crowds along the routes did not transform into votes, as seen in the results.
The fourth fault was the BJP had fewer women leaders to take on Mamata. Modi, Shah, Nadda, Smriti Irani were all notably aggressive. Save Irani, the BJP leaders from outside Bengal were all males. Average Bengalis squirmed in their seats as they found one of their women mercilessly pounded day after day during the month-long acerbic campaigns. Mamata was in a wheelchair and eloquently portrayed a wounded Bengali woman to stir up anger and sympathy. Yogi Adityanath, the CM of UP, addressed a few rallies and promised to set up ‘Anti-Romeo squads,’ which was out of sync and exemplified the disconnect of the BJP with a liberal thinking Bengal.
The fifth fault of BJP was they had no CM face. A TMC versus BJP battle was expertly steered as a Mamata versus Modi battle. It was a David versus Goliath battle. Mamata was the CM and would have been so if TMC wins, but the BJP could not provide a CM face, which considerably weakened their position. Sourav Ganguli, the much-hyped and likely CM face for the BJP, declined to fight the elections. An ex-TMC MP and former confidante of Mamata Banerjee, Mithun Chakravarty, declined to fight the polls on a BJP ticket. None of the leftover leaders was worthy of leading the State, the BJP state president leading the list as unsuitable. BJP made many sitting MPs contest the Assembly elections, and many lost, adding insult to the injury.
The sixth fault was the BJP contestants consisted of mostly deserters from the TMC. Old-timers from the party were sidelined. The BJP gloated with each desertion from the TMC camp. Admission to the BJP was loud and ceremonious in front of glaring media. Most turncoats, close to one hundred, were given tickets, and thus the BJP lost its credibility while claiming the TMC was corrupt. Mamata taunted the BJP, calling the deserters from her party as Mir Jafar’s, whose betrayal led to British rule of India for 200 years. Mamata went ballistic over the ever-increasing cost of Petrol and gas. She warned her supporters that West Bengal would be turned into another Gujarat, reminding the gory killings during the post-Godhra carnage when Narendra Modi was Gujarat’s Chief Minister.
The seventh fault was the inability to cope with the innovative speed of TMC’s poll strategist, Prashant Kishor. The poll strategists of TMC coined a ‘Khela hobey’, meaning the game will be played as a retort to Jai Shri Ram. A football-crazy Bengal went berserk with posters and banners of Mamata, a football held under her plastered leg, the graffiti yelling Khela hobey. In response, the BJP tried a ‘Khela Sesh,’ the game was over, which had not many takers. The IT cell of the BJP was perceived as a dirty-tricks department posting fake news and pictures of the opponents. A morphed picture of an injured Mamata walking to her car while she was confined to a wheelchair at the hospital caused immense damage to the image of the BJP party.
The eighth fault was the taunt by Modi. TMC coined a new slogan. ‘Bengal wants its daughter.’ Modi’s taunt, “Didi-O-Didi,’ was not graceful and honourable and boomeranged, Mamata capitalizing the tease as an insult towards all the Bengali women. Mamata exhorted all Bengali women to take out ladles and rolling pins to resist the outside Central forces if they resisted voting. For the first time, this election witnessed many rural women in strength, loyally obeying Didi and out with much kitchenware. Finally, Bengal chose its daughter over the strangers and outsiders from the BJP. Mamata converted the reprimand by the EC on the issue by sitting in ‘dharna’ at the Gandhi statue, drawing more attention and likes.
The ninth fault was the failure of the BJP to match the sudden soft line Hindutva by Mamata. The BJP tried to portray Mamata as ‘Begum,’ signifying her closeness to the Muslims. She retaliated with the recitation of Chandi path, invoking Goddess Durga, the popular Hindu Goddess of Bengal. She visited 19 temples, besides a few Dargahs, on the day of her filing her nomination papers. Mamata revealed her Brahmin ancestry and lineage. A significant deviation took place; she realized that it was not sufficient to rely on the minority votes, but it was also essential to break the stranglehold of the BJP as the sole custodian of Hindutva ideologies. She opted for a ‘soft-Hindutva’ line to confront the BJP as the gentry of Bengal now felt satisfied, as did her captive minority vote bank.
The tenth fault of the BJP did not have any plans to include minorities, who were significant in numbers. While leaning towards Hinduism, she also placated the minorities that not one migrant will be displaced from her State, thundering that ‘such can happen only over her dead body.’ That put to rest all hopes of the newly formed minorities party, the Indian Secular Front. A harried Maulana Abbasi ran to the Left to seal an alliance, which became the undoing of the Left, who collectively scored a zero in the polls. The minorities decided to stay with Didi, who responded warmly by fielding as many Muslim candidates. Out of the 44 MLAs won, 43 are from the TMC. Her gamble paid off as she decimated all the Left, Congress and the minority opposition in one go.
The eleventh fault was BJP had no regional allies, crucial to state politics. The feedback from the initial rounds of polling was not comforting. An unrelenting Mamata played another masterstroke. She wrote to all national opposition leaders seeking their support to her, fighting valiantly against the onslaught of the BJP. It worked, and I guess the Central leadership of the Left and Congress decided to suffer the ignominy of losing the polls, which in any case, they would have fared badly. The Left and the Congress forsook their votes to the TMC to stop the BJP from winning the State.
The twelfth fault was increased reliance on Central agencies. The BJP left no stone unturned, roping in all agencies under the control of the Central Government. The EC seemed partisan, too, dragging the elections over a month in a precarious Covid affected nation.
The BJP let an opportunity slip out of their hands. The BJP has failed to understand the demography of West Bengal, which has nearly 30% minorities, who normally are tied to the TMC and cannot be won over easily. BJP’s attempts to consolidate the Hindu votes were far too aggressive in a State that borders Bangladesh and Bengali Hindus living in relative harmony and peace with the minorities.
Surely, the polls are a setback for Modi and Shah as the results have far-reaching consequences. The juggernaut of TMC, powered by its irrepressible engine, Mamata Banerjee, will challenge the might of the BJP during the 2024 Parliamentary elections with the support of most of the opposition parties.
Even as the poll dust is settling down, the customary post-poll political violence has erupted all over the State. Mamata must end the mayhem like Mahatma Gandhi’s fasting during the Noakhali riots in 1946.
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix