In the evening of May 2, the moment the Election Commission refused to accede to Mamata Banerjee’s request to recount the votes, it became clear that the BJP was ready with its strategy to humiliate Mamata, destabilise her government once she is sworn in as the chief minister on May 5 and push the state into communal riots.
According to the script, the next step of BJP may be to project her as a power hungry leader who does not have respect for political morality and probity in public life. As this is not enough to check her emergence as the opposition face at the national level, in order to achieve this target it planned to label as incompetent and fascist administrator.
Unleashing violence has been the part of this strategy. The violence erupting in the night of May 2 acquired an ugly face during the day on May 3. It was the planned design of the BJP leaders to correlate surfacing of violence with her defeat. Amazingly the BJP presented its image of being the victim. What is worse, the right wing instead of striving to calm down the temper was busy giving a religious colour to the violence. Its senior leaders have been going around identifying the victims by their religion.
Undoubtedly they are desperate to impose President’s rule, their primary move being to prevent Mamata taking the oath for the third time. They intend to derail the mandate. The right wing plot also gets exposed by their action plan to hold dharna across the country on May 5, coinciding with the swearing in ceremony of Mamata as the chief minister. The attitude of BJP towards violence could be judged from BJP chief J P Nadda’s comparison of the clashes with partition violence.
BJP’s desperation to prevent Mamata from taking oath is manifest in their spreading fake news and communalising political events. Elections were held in four more states, but such violence has not been reported from those states. Why it has been happening only in Bengal? TMC’s victory has catapulted Mamata at the national level as the opposition face who can challenge Modi. Naturally the prime task of the BJP is to erase this perception.
In the past, during Mamata’s rule, a number of incidents of political violence had taken place. But Modi never enquired about the condition of the victims. But this time just within 24 hours of the incidents he personally called Dhankar and enquired about the BJP cadres. What does it imply?
The entire activities of the administration, BJP leaders and Modi smack of a deep rooted conspiracy to malign the image of Mamata. BJP leaders who threatened to “see” Mamata have now started accusing her of issuing veiled threats of “looking after” her opponents after the elections and her lumpen cadre are following up on them now.
Significantly the BJP leaders are not accusing the Election Commission for the violence knowing well that the state and its administration is still under the command of the EC. Just after the election scheduled was announced the EC brought its own set of officials, including the DG of Police. In all fairness once the cases of violence surfaced the EC should have instructed the officials to handle the situation with a strong hand. Though Mamata continues to be the chief minister, she has no effective control on the police and administration under the election rules. In this backdrop a case could be filed against the EC for the violence incidents and abdication of its responsibility
For pre-empting the TMC to approach the SC requesting it to look into the failures of the EC in checking the occurrence of violence incidents, the national spokesperson of BJP has knocked at the door of the apex court. True enough an insight into the violence would unravel the conspiracy hatched out by the BJP leadership. BJP national president J.P Nadda on Tuesday visited the homes of alleged victims of Trinamool atrocities.
Nevertheless some of the allegations made by the BJP have turned out to be false and concocted, indicating a motive to demand the imposition of the President’s rule in the state. Some voices within the BJP are already trying to amplify such a demand.
Mamata blamed the BJP for the tension in the state: “This is BJP’s propaganda. Some sporadic incidents are there, but it happens in every state. I am not justifying violence. BJP is trying to create communal clashes, because of their shameful defeat. They have lost their credibility. Till now even law and order was being handled by the central forces, not by me. So, this is their doing, they are to blame for spoiling the situation if this is true.”
Mamata also accused the BJP of indulging in rumour mongering, using fake videos, misusing their powers and agencies to finish federalism and bulldoze the federal character of the country”. Her handing a humiliating defeat to Modi and Amit Shah has hurt their ego. Letting violence to surface is the part of their mechanism to take revenge on Mamata. It cannot be denied that she had smashed the aura of invincibility surrounding them. The media which played a key role in image makeover of Modi has been lamenting at Bengal turning into a violent state.
The most potent reason for the BJP targeting the TMC and Mamata has been to ricochet the voice of dissent and criticism that has been emerging fast inside the party against the leadership quality of Modi and Shah. With the BJP systematically losing almost all the elections whether it were for the municipalities or corporations or panchayats has been causing consternation in the lobby close to Modi. His opponents have already started questioning his capability to deliver notwithstanding his projection as the poster boy.
Modi-Shah’s vow to ensure the defeat of Mamata has raised the expectations of the leadership and cadres quite high. But its miserable failure has exposed them to the extent of ridicule. It is worth recalling that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was the first senior most BJP leader to congratulate Mamata. Incidentally Amit Shah so far did not congratulate her for the victory of TMC.
In this backdrop blaming Mamata is the best tactics to protect the public image of Modi and leadership acumen of Shah. It has in fact also become a political compulsion with BJP losing the panchayat election of Uttar Pradesh. Winning the panchayat elections has been the dire need for Modi-Shah combine. The election to the UP assembly will take place sometime in June next year. The defeat of the BJP is being interpreted as Modi and his protégé Yogi, the chief minister of UP, losing the ground level support. The aides of Modi nurse the view that the dissidents within the party may use the Bengal defeat to come together and find a replacement to Modi. Though RSS is with Modi, it may find it difficult to come to his rescue in the changed situation. (IPA Service)