By Tirthankar Mitra
KOLKATA: The mood of the BJP rank and file in West Bengal is certainly upbeat after the electoral rallies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah in the recent days, barely eight days before the first phase of polling scheduled n April 23. The leaders’ visits have put electoral arithmetic of the state in a more favourable position to meet the challenge of the Trinamool Congress, say the BJP sources.
The duo’s words have struck a link in the armour of the Trinamool Congress which can be a chink likely to give way after sustained political hammering. It is the Muslim vote bank.
For a decade it has rallied behind Trinamool supremo and chief minister, Mamata Banerjee. Preceding its proximity with the TMC dispensation, its loyalty lay with CPI(M)-led Left Front.
The first split on the eve of the 2026 assembly elections occurred after TMC leadership expelled its Bharatpur legislator Humayun Kabir post his initiative to build another Babri mosque. Unwilling to take his expulsion lying down, he floated Aam Janata Unnayan Party (AJUP).
After AJUP briefly allied with Asaduddin Owaisi ‘s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) it symbolised more than its immediate electoral strength. It marked the search for autonomy of a community with which neither BJP nor TMC has been able to provide for reasons of their own.
Localised discontent which was tried to be camouflaged with religious fervour poses a threat to split the Muslim vote bank of the TMC. Incidentally, though the BJP leadership knows well it cannot turn this segment of voters towards it, its split is a boon to them.
The AJUP-AIMIM alliance is no longer in place post a purported sting video which Kabir dismissed as AI generated. But the damage has been done to his political prospects and that of AJUP.
Over the decades electoral politics in West Bengal has been consolidation versus fragmentation. The new alliance has been splintered leaving it’s supporters in confusion.
Both Prime Minister Modi and Union home minister Shah zeroed in on this. First they climbed high moral ground and launched a stinging criticism against the fledgling alliance, a cue promptly taken up by the state leadership.
Addressing different poll rallies, state unit chief Samik Bhattacharya, leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari and former state unit chief Dilip Ghosh have been speaking of the words of the leading lights of their party. It’s common refrain is the communal nature of the forces opposed to the saffron camp and the TMC is being tried to be painted as the party appeasing the Muslims.
This is indeed a vocal tonic for the grassroot saffron camp activists who were at the receiving end of TMC ire. The words of the two seniormost leaders of the BJP on a fresh election issue have spurred them into the thick of the poll campaign.
Indeed the dynamics are straightforward for the saffron camp. A threat to the Bengali Hindu identity has been spoken of by Prime Minister Modi.
He has promised not to let the Bengalis turn into minorities in West Bengal. He has appealed to a post Partition generation to whom privations when the country was divided are distant memories.
But it is an emotive issue all the same. For children have stepped into adulthood hearing tales of horror and harassment which their grandparents had to go though when they came as refugees from the eastern part of Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
After the Prime Minister harked to those terrible times, the party rank and file together have started focusing on Hindu identity and the threat of the Hindus becoming marginalized in Bengal due to Mamata’s policies.. In the wake of the departures of PM Modi and HM Shah, their activists words and gestures echo that of the leaders.
The BJP’s think tank in the state including the advisers and observers sent by the top central leadership have started assessing the impact on the common Hindus outside the saffron camp and how this is impacting the floating Hindu voters. Both PM Modi and Home Minister Shah have made it clear that their appeal is to the Hindus of the state to come out enbloc to vote for the BJP in the assembly polls. There is no bid to influence the Muslim voters since the BJP leadership knows that the Muslims are not ready to vote for the BJP, irrespective of the assurances given by the PM.
The BJP is approaching the Bengal battle through a twofold strategy. First, through the SIR, huge names of Muslims as also other persons have been deleted from the electoral rolls which might help the BJP candidates in the marginal constituencies. Secondly, by focusing on Hindutva identity of the Bengalis, the BJP is appealing to the Hindu voters who supported other parties including TMC, Congress and the Left Front to vote for BJP this time.
The TMC leaders have taken account of the new challenges before them after the large meetings held by the PM and HM. They are however confident of meeting the new challenge through their own ground work and booth level management. The TMC think tank and the strategists have been constantly monitoring the BJP activities including the moves of the BJP’s principal strategist Amit Shah. They are getting immediately with their counter plans. That way, to what extent, the BJP will be able to derive its benefits from PM and HM campaign on two polling days, that is still a matter of debate. In any case, the electoral poll battle in Bengal has turned out to be highly interesting following full mobilization by both the ruling TMC and the central ruling party BJP. (IPA Service)
