The Bengal bane!

Bengal politics is seeing a new churn. The BJP saw a rush for party tickets for the 2021 Assembly elections. It was a fallout of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, where the BJP performed better than their expectations. However, between 2019 and 2021, the Trinamool repaired and revived their party. In contrast, the BJP had concluded a landslide win in the Assembly polls and was busy choosing a CM face among many contenders.

The BJP missed that they were pitched against an experienced and intelligent adversary in Mamata, a veteran of many battles, including street battles. She knows the pulse of her people, the women voters, the minorities, and the youths. She repulsed the onslaught of the BJP Juggernaut to return to a thumping and a landslide victory in 2021, which is history.

Many who had left the Trinamool party with the hope of striking rich in a new government were disappointed. Many lost the elections and waited for Didi’s benevolence to be readmitted into the party. A few disgruntled BJP leaders too joined the queue. The elected BJP leaders had nothing to gain from the State, and they too were ready to quit BJP. Mukul Roy, who is now behind the scenes, seems to be working hard in the reverse migration, and the latest statements of a BJP MP, Arjun Singh, point in that direction.

Arjun Singh is a Trade Unionist and an ex-Trinamool leader. He joined the BJP due to the efforts of Mukul Roy. Mukul himself later ditched the BJP to return to Trinamool and even helped many of those who had joined the BJP to return to Trinamool. Arjun Singh’s latest and carefully calibrated attack against the raw jute price capping by the Jute Corporation of India is to keep his voters, mostly from the Jute belt, happy. But, while strongly criticizing the Jute prices cap, Arjun Singh, the BJP MP, has also praised Mamata, unusual for an opposition MP. He has threatened to launch an agitation against the Centre, which must be music for the Trinamool Party’s ears.

Why does Arjun Singh have to resort to this anti-centre stand? There are still two and a half years to complete his tenure as an MP. Queering the pitch would force BJP to suspend and sack him when he can switch over as an MP to Trinamool without losing his parliamentary seat. More alarming for the BJP is the rumbling from the former BJP State president Dilip Ghosh. He is increasingly caustic with the present Bengal BJP president, Sukanta Majumdar, calling him inexperienced and unfit to lead.

BJP is paying the price for its hurry in admitting questionable characters like Arjun Singh into its fold. It has faulted by admitting Mukul Roy, who has been under the glare of many investigating agencies for corruption. The party has erred by filling its ranks with defectors from Trinamool, who had no love lost for the principles of the BJP. The BJP failed to protect its cadres and leaders from post-poll violence. The party is going down in an internal war, where each leader is taking on the other.

The rise of Suvendu Adhikari, who has assumed the face of the West Bengal BJP, has not gone down well with a few in the party, who are doing their best to drag him down. They do not bother that the party is also buried down in the process. There seems to be no respite for the party from a continued fall. Resurrection for the BJP Bengal unit seems impossible unless the BJP has made a tacit understanding with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool party for a secret peaceful coexistence.

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix