By Tirthankar Mitra
KOLKATA: The outcome of Kaligunj by-election in which Trinamool Congress convincingly defeated both BJP and Left supported Congress candidates has given rise to factors which only a decisive electoral triumph could underscore. Trinamool supremo, Mamata Banerjee spearheading the contention that BSF personnel pushing back some Bengali speaking residents of West Bengal to Bangladesh as infiltrators was a sign of Bengali identity being under threat, had many takers among the voters.
Banerjee’s view point was vindicated as Kaligunj voters expressed their support overwhelmingly for TMC’ Alifa Ahmed. In all, 1,02,759 votes cast in her favour turned out to be a pointer to the line of campaign chalked out by the party supremo to be pursued by TMC in 2026 Assembly elections.
The by-election result leaves political observers in little doubt that “militant-majoritarianism” propagated by state BJP leadership has fallen short of target. Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari had called upon the Bengali Hindus to vote for his party.
With 52,710 votes in the kitty of BJP candidate Ashish Ghosh, it forms only 28.29 per cent of the total voters. It sends a clear message that Adhikari and the saffron camp leaders will have to change their line of campaign come 2026 elections.
Adhikari claimed that his party secured a sizeable section of Hindu votes. But out of nearly 1.3 lakh Hindu electors, Ghosh secured 52,000-odd votes thereby negating his party leader’s claim.
In this backdrop, BJP changing its campaign style aimed at polarizing the voters on religious lines seems to be a tall order. Refreshing collective memory many would recall Mamata Banerjee saying that BJP seat tally in 2026 Assembly elections would be reduced to zero.
Her words were taken with a pinch of salt by saffron camp leaders while some of her own party men took it as another moral booster to TMC activists. But several election issues she has lined up including BSF personnel pushing Bengali speaking residents of West Bengal’s border area to Bangladesh dubbing them infiltrators have given electoral dividend if the Kaligunj by poll results are anything to go by.
The Kaligunj by election results have once again underscored the nature of West Bengal voters to be a “pluralist-inclusive” one. The reduction in BJP’s vote share and a corresponding rise in the vote percentage of Left supported Congress candidate Kabil Uddin Shaikh is a significant development of this by-poll.
Shaikh, despite such rise from 11.98 per cent in 2021 election to 15.21 per cent remains a poor third in this triangular electoral battle. The results of Kaligunj by-election sends out a clear message that political configuration in West Bengal in terms of support base remains unchanged.
Time was when the claim of the TMC supremo to reduce BJP with 70-odd legislators in the state Assembly to zero appeared to be tall talk. For there are no dearth of campaign material in the saffron arsenal given the killing of a lady doctor in RG Kar Medical College and the communal conflagration at Murshidabad.
But seasoned political leader that she is, Mamata Banerjee has several issues to catch the BJP on the wrong foot. Some residents of the state’s border areas being pushed by BSF personnel into Bangladesh and hunting down Bengali speaking Indian citizens in BJP-ruled states have struck a raw nerve of many residents of West Bengal.
The emotive issue cuts across party lines. For the basis of these persons being taken for Bangladeshis is the language they speak – Bengali.
On a cue from the chief minister, several TMC leaders have started raising this point in successive rallies including election meetings in Kaligunj. Central funds freeze pale into insignificance when the crowds are told that they stand the risk of losing their Indian citizenship for speaking in Bengali.
The speakers instantly catch the crowd’s attention when they recall the plight of some residents of Hariharpara in Murshidabad being herded like cattle towards Bangladesh. These persons were earmarked by BSF as “foreigners’ as they spoke Bengali.
The next logical step on part of the TMC leadership is to describe the BJP as an anti-Bengali party. And there appears to be little no credibility gap in this contention as the state BJP leaders have not given any suitable rejoinder.
Their silence is in keeping with the stance of the state BJP leadership. And the fact remains that neither leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari nor state party chief Sukanta Majumdar are known to lose any occasion to voice their views.
Come 2026 election, the duo will be hard put to explain the BSF’s action. Their silence has cost them valuable time and credibility the latest instance of it being discernible in Kaligunj.
Moreover, the BJP’s call to deport foreigners and in the process picking up sons of the soil and pushing them back to Bangladesh have led to a self goal. What started as a drive to identify and deport infiltrators have backfired.
Mamata Banerjee is loath to let the issue go. Moreover, apart from an issue nearer home, a similar incident away from West Bengal has turned out to be the icing on the cake for Banerjee.
The Trinamool supremo has raised the incident of some Bengali speaking migrant workers being detained in Maharashtra as Bangladeshi infiltrators. These persons have been suspect because they speak in Bengali.
One should be proud of speaking in Bengali as well as other Indian languages, the Trinamool supremo said. Speaking the language of the country they belong to cannot be the reason to humiliate them as “outsiders”, she added.
One must not lose sight of the fact that Banerjee’s appeal embraces a wider audience while the leader of the Opposition, Adhikari is limiting his call for support only to Bengali Hindus. Banerjee’s call include all those who speak Bengali including a sizeable number of persons who unlike Adhikari’s target audience is not confined to a particular religious group.
Banerjee has her finger on the people’s pulse. Showcasing her credibility, she has snatched victory earlier against huge odds be it video tapes of some of her party leaders taking money in the Narada sting operation or Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah visiting West Bengal almost daily before 2021 Assembly elections and yet failing to usher in a poll triumph for the saffron camp.
Moreover, riven with intra-party squabbles, the state BJP does not appear to be an outfit capable of replacing the Trinamool dispensation in West Bengal. Besides, differences of opinion between the senior state BJP leaders, resentment of the party MLAs have come into the open.
In a meeting with senior leader, Sunil Bansal, more than 20 BJP legislators have voiced that a section of party leadership keep them in the dark about party programmes. They have also regretted that the state BJP is no longer in the thick of agitations.
Moreover, the programmes are more on commemorating the birth and death anniversaries of persons from whom the party draws ideological sustenance. These ceremonies have gained more importance than bringing up the burning issues plaguing the lives of the people.
The saffron camp does not seem to be ready to take on the ruling dispensation of Trinamool Congress in 2026 Assembly polls. Given the state of preparation in the camp of her principal political opponent in the state, TMC seems to be placed comfortably ten months before the assembly elections in April 2026. (IPA Service)
