By Tirthankar Mitra
KOLKATA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi sounding poll bugle for 2026 Assembly polls in West Bengal at his Durgapur rally on Friday turned out to be a feeble call. While he spoke of Bengali “asmita” (pride) in his 34-minute address to stoke the Bengali sentiment for BJP, his principal political opponent in the state, Mamata Banerjee has already beaten him to the draw bringing out a huge procession in protest against the labelling of Bengali speaking people as Bangladeshis in several BJP-ruled states.
“Wherever there is BJP, Bengalis are safe’ PM Modi said during the rally. Given the incidents of Bengalis being stated to be Bangladeshis which have become campaign fodder for the Trinamool supremo Banerjee, BJP’s principal vote catcher seems to have shot himself on the foot with this assertion. .
Against this backdrop, the prime minister’s call to the people to support BJP in next year’s Assembly elections in West Bengal lacked substance. His reference to poet Bishnu Dey and pioneer woman doctor Kadambini Ganguli to pay tribute to Bengali pride rang hollow.
Indeed listeners in the Durgapur’s Nehru stadium and beyond detected shades of bias against the sons of the soil of West Bengal in his address when PM Modi spoke of stern action meaning deportation of anyone who are not Indian citizens from the country’s soil. Many of the persons who had been alleged to be infiltrators have turned out to be on closer scrutiny to be Indian citizens who are residents of this state.
But the PM’s speech did not have a word of protest at this harassment of Bengalis in parts of Assam and Odisha where the BJP is in governance. Of course, he invoked the bogey of infiltration from Bangladesh threatening to change the demography of the state.
But there was no recrimination for BSF, the central agency under Union home ministry who are entrusted in guarding the borders against infiltrators. The PM’s war of words was entirely against shortcomings of Trinamool state government.
There were other marked departures from the usual poll speeches of the Prime Minister. Not once did he invoke Lord Ram in his address though it is an established fact the campaign to build a temple for him had been the principal poll plank of the saffron camp for decades.
Of course, divinity was invoked during the PM’s speech. But it was “Jai Ma Kali” and “Jai Ma Durga’ , both goddesses more widely worshipped in this state than BJP’s original deity Ram in s bid to connect with religious culture of West Bengal. PM Modi giving Ram a complete go by did not go unnoticed. His political opponents be it TMC or Congress fired broadsides at him accusing him of invoking and casting off gods according to political convenience.
Yet PM Modi’s speech stood out for its endeavour to reach out to the people of Bengal. The new game plan was certainly geared to appeal to the Bengali heart and mind. But it seems to be an effort which has too little and is made too late. Lack of criticism for harassment if Bengalis in BJP-ruled states was conspicuous in the PM’s address.
The state BJP leadership appeared to be unsure of a capacity crowd being present at the PM’s rally site. After all, it had lost in the Durgapur Asansol Lok Sabha seat where the rally was held.
West Bengal is no stranger to rallies. But keenly aware that Durgapur, once a bustling industrial hub of West Bengal was not a saffron bastion, state party chief Samik Bhattacharya went from house to house in this industrial township distributing invitations to the PM’s rally.
Bhattacharya’s fears were unfounded as there were no dearth of listeners to the PM’s address. But as it marked inauguration of projects worth several hundreds of crores including a gas pipeline from Durgapur to Kolkata, there were dollops of incongruity in it.
Durgapur is dotted with languishing and closed industrial units belonging to both public and private sectors. No mention of reviving them in near future with largesse of the Union government was part of the PM’s speech.
There were occasions when the Prime Minister spoke of the industrial preeminence of West Bengal. Mention was also made of Durgapur and areas in and around it which were pivots of industrial production sans a suggestion to bring back the lost glory.
South Bengal where Durgapur is located is not a happy hunting ground of the saffron camp unlike the northern part of the state. The Prime Minister’s rally did not improve his party’s poll prospects in this part of the state.
The Prime Minister Modi’s claim of restoring West Bengal to its lost glory received flak from his political opponents in the state. Their common refrain was had he not earlier made such promises for Karnataka, Assam, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha of making them ‘A-1 states” and “growth engines”.
The rally exposed deep fissures in the organisational structure of the state saffron unit. The party rank and file was looking forward to PM Modi sharing the dias with state chief Bhattacharya, leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari and former state chief Dilip Ghosh. But uninvited by the party brass, Ghosh chose to skip the PM’s rally. He journeyed to the national Capital presenting his case to and seeking redress from national party chief, JP Nadda
Ghosh’s absence clearly carried a message to saffron camp supporters and their political opponents. It is a divided house which would be taking on the Trinamool, Left and Congress in 2026 Assembly elections next year.
The Prime Minister did not issue any call to beef up the state unit’s organisational structure. The BJP is yet to have sufficient number of activists to be deployed in all the polling booths. The reason behind this being the absence of a strong and uniform spread of cadre base throughout the state. The lack of BJP presence was conspicuous in the different agitations which rocked the city in protest against crime on women
Perhaps the Prime Minister did not choose to drive in a source of organisational weakness of the state unit. But the fact is that it cannot be overlooked and is likely to go against the party in the electoral battle ahead. Narendra Modi failed to impart that dynamism to the BJP organization that was needed at this hour. However, he will be visiting Bengal many more times before the elections. For the present, the visit failed to trigger any extra energy to the divided BJP. (IPA Service)
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