Poor ground presence contributed to BJP’s sub-par performance in Bengal

Editor's ChoicePoor ground presence contributed to BJP’s sub-par performance in Bengal

KOLKATA: The BJP’s litany of corruption allegations failed to resonate with voters, while the CAA, intended as a BJP electoral strategy, prompted minorities previously undecided between the TMC and the Left-Congress alliance to consolidate behind Mamata Banerjee’s party.

For a party which was publicly gunning for at least 30 Lok Sabha seats from West Bengal, the BJP’s performance nosedived this time. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had secured 18 seats with 40.64% vote share, while its prime rival, the Trinamool Congress had bagged 22 seats with 43.69% vote share. This time BJP’s vote share came down to 38.73%, while that of the Trinamool Congress rose to 45.76%. However, an analysis of the tactics employed by the parties shows that the BJP was not only bested, but its own self-goals helped Mamata Banerjee notch up gains that even her die-hard supporters did not expect.

ABSENCE OF GROUND CADRE

If the Trinamool Congress reaped the rewards of a tactically superior campaign backed by a solid on-ground presence along with the support of a pliant police and administration, the BJP was left grappling with issues like weak on-ground election machinery.
With each Lok Sabha seat having approximately 1,800 booths, the BJP could not place its karyakartas in almost half of them. In contrast, in all booths across the state, the Trinamool Congress, along with the booth agent of the official candidate, had at least two-three booth agents of its dummy candidates who were contesting as Independents. This provided the required muscle-power to drive out the BJP’s agent, if at all there was one.
Abhijit Das (Bobby), the BJP’s Diamond Harbour candidate who lost to the Trinamool’s second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee by a record margin of 7.1 lakh votes, told The Sunday Guardian: “The Trinamool goons drove out our agents and indulged in rampant chhappa (false) voting as the polling officers looked the other way.”

Rekha Patra, the BJP’s Basirhat candidate, alleged: “In all the booths I managed to get in, the VVPAT machines were placed outside the EVM and were being monitored by a TMC man. How can any villager vote freely? My protests to polling officers went in vain.”
In almost all seats on polling day, Trinamool Congress mobilised its cadre to obstruct the BJP’s candidates from reaching the booths. Almost every BJP candidate faced “go back” slogans, while some, like Dr Pranat Tudu, the Jhargram candidate, had to run for his life after brick batting injured his security guard.

“The role of the election machinery on the ground is very important. And, there is no doubt that on this front, the Trinamool is much stronger than the saffron party,” said political scientist Subhomoy Maitra.

INFIGHTING

Even in its stronghold in North Bengal, the BJP was able to retain five seats—Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Raiganj and Balurghat. However, the Trinamool Congress managed to wrest the Cooch Behar seat from incumbent BJP MP and Union Minister Nisith Pramanik, who lost by over 39,250 votes.

According to a senior party leader in North Bengal, in Cooch Behar the party was not united. “There were conflicts within the party, which led to the loss,” he said.
Also, Dilip Ghosh, the BJP’s former state president, lost Bardhaman-Durgapur seat, to Trinamool Congress candidate and former cricket player Kirti Azad who won by a margin of 1.38 lakh votes.

In the 2019 LS elections, Ghosh had won from the Medinipur seat. This time BJP’s Agnimitra Paul lost this seat to Trinamool Congress’ June Malia by 27,191 votes.
Ghosh has hinted at “conspiracy and backbiting” behind his electoral loss. He said it needs to be examined why the party could not maintain its momentum of growth in Bengal after the 2021 Assembly elections.

The infighting among the top-rung state BJP leaders has left the karyakartas confused. After the 2021 assembly polls loss, Dilip Ghosh was removed from the post of BJP state unit president and replaced by Sukanta Majumdar. Insiders say that Bengal BJP has three lobbies, led by Dilip Ghosh, Sukanta Majumdar, and Suvendu Adhikari. Among these, they say, the Suvendu lobby is the strongest. A section of BJP workers is said to be disgruntled with more importance being given to leaders who have switched over from the Trinamool in recent years.

After the Lok Sabha poll results, Dilip Ghosh said, “We did well till 2021 but then we could not move forward for the last three years. All workers have not worked. We will have to discuss it. There was a conspiracy also.”

Party insiders say that after the 2019 results, the BJP made its Bengal MPs Nisith Pramanik, Subhas Sarkar, John Barla, Shantanu Thakur, and Debasree Chaudhuri ministers but none of them did much for the state.

According to observers, when Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee was the Railway Minister at the Centre, she had a special focus on her state. In every poll meeting, Mamata Banerjee highlighted this, fanning discontentment with the fence-sitters.

For the BJP, many factors did not work in their favour, despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the charge with around 19 rallies in the state.

MAMATA’S GAME PLAN

Political analysts say the BJP’s failure to counter Mamata Banerjee’s narrative regarding denial of funds to Bengal also played a part in the decimation.

“The withholding of Central funds cost us dearly as the Trinamool propagated that we are denying the MGNREGA beneficiaries. We failed to counter it,” a senior state BJP leader said.
The BJP’s litany of corruption allegations failed to resonate with voters, while the CAA, intended as a BJP electoral strategy, unexpectedly prompted minorities previously undecided between the Trinamool and the Left-Congress alliance to consolidate behind Mamata Banerjee’s party.

“Moreover, the corruption allegations against the Trinamool Congress government affected only the middle-class, which constitutes a minuscule percentage of the total voters. So, it has not been reflected on the poll results,” Maitra pointed out.

In stark contrast, beneficiaries of the state government’s social welfare schemes, mainly Lakshmir Bhandar, supported the Trinamool Congress. “These beneficiaries are a major part of the electorate,” political analyst Subhamoy Maitra told The Sunday Guardian.

The Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, introduced in 2021 by the Mamata Banerjee Government, provides cash assistance to women between 25 and 60 years.

Support of women resulted in the Trinamool reclaiming the Coochbehar, Behrampur, Murshidabad, Medinipur and Hooghly seats and also drove the Trinamool’s wins by big margins in Krishnanagar, Mathurapur, Kolkata North, Uluberia, Arambagh, Jangipur, Ghatal, Bolpur, Birbhum and Bardhaman. Banerjee’s adept construction of a narrative portraying herself as a defender of Bengal’s interests, despite corruption criticisms, resonated with voters, leaving the BJP grappling with an ineffective response.

Political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said the consolidation of the Muslim votes behind the Trinamool Congress and the Left-Congress alliance proved to be BJP’s Achilles heels.
“The BJP had hoped that the Left-Congress alliance would split the minority votes, which did happen in some seats in North Bengal—Balurghat and Raiganj—helping the BJP to win. But in South Bengal, the minorities stood like a rock behind the TMC. Additionally, the split of anti-TMC votes also dented BJP chances,” he said.

Ironically, in 2019 it was the shift of the Left and the Congress votes to the BJP, that led to its meteoric rise in the state.

Senior state BJP leaders, who did not wish to be named, said the party’s overdependence on central leadership, notably Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, proved to be a notable drawback, alienating a section of Bengal’s electorate “due to the perception of outsider dominance and the absence of credible local leadership, thereby exacerbating the disconnect between the party and the people.”

“The heavy dependence on Hindutva and a campaign centred on ‘Modi ki guarantee’ exacerbated its electoral challenges, as it failed to connect with Bengal’s diverse electorate who prioritized local issues and governance over the Ram Mandir construction,” said another state BJP leader.

Like in 2021, the Trinamool also successfully used sentiments of Bengali sub-nationalism to paint the BJP as a party of “Bohiragoto (outsiders)” that had stopped the flow of Central funds to the state. With the BJP not having as strong a regional face as Mamata Banerjee, this strategy seemed to work.

Efforts towards polarisation may have backfired as Muslim votes consolidated for the Trinamool while Hindu votes did not for the BJP. Observers say, taking a cue from Modi, BJP campaigners started accusing Mamata Banerjee very harshly of Muslim appeasement.
Amit Shah repeatedly said that the Trinamool’s politics was all about “mullah, maulvi, madrassa and mafia”. This resulted in a consolidation of Muslim votes behind the Trinamool Congress.

The BJP also failed to consolidate its Hindu vote bank with the Left-Congress taking away chunks of it.

The Left-Congress combine got 12% votes across the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, denting the BJP’s prospects in at least a dozen seats while seemingly playing spoilsport to the Trinamool Congress in three-four seats of North Bengal.

In south Bengal, the Left-Congress combine managed to get a minor share of the Hindu vote which had consolidated in favour of the BJP. The increase in the Left’s vote share in the region is being seen as a key factor in denting the BJP’s prospects in at least a dozen seats.

However, the CPI(M) failed to make inroads in the minority vote bank of the Trinamool.
In Asansol, the BJP’s S.S. Ahluwalia fell short by a margin of 59,564 votes, while the CPI(M) candidate secured over 1 lakh votes as the Trinamool’s Shatrughan Sinha won. In Asansol, Ahluwalia’s candidature was declared late and the fact that he was largely absent from his previous constituency, Bardhaman-Durgapur, worked against him, say sources.
In Arambagh, the Trinamool’s winning margin stood at 6,399, while the CPIM, which finished third, secured over 92,000 votes. Similarly, in Hooghly, the BJP lost the seat to the Trinamool by a margin of 76,853 votes while third-place CPIM got more than 1.39 lakh votes.

In Birbhum and Kolkata Uttar, Congress candidates secured 16% and 12% of the votes, which may have dented the BJP’s chances.
After the third phase of polling, the BJP started a communal campaign, which forced the minorities to vote en masse in favour of the Trinamool Congress.

CAA TROUBLE

The CAA, intended as a BJP electoral strategy, unexpectedly prompted minorities previously undecided between the Trinamool and the Left-Congress alliance to consolidate behind the Trinamool.

Meanwhile, the CAA, which the BJP hoped would consolidate the Bangladeshi refugee community of the state in its favour, seemingly failed to deliver electoral success.
In the 2019 polls, the BJP had won three of the six seats dominated by the Matua community riding on the promise of CAA implementation. However, despite notifying the rules of the CAA just ahead of the polls, the BJP lost the Cooch Behar seat and retained Bangaon and Ranaghat with a marginal dip in vote share.

On the other hand, the Trinamool Congress retained the other three Matua-dominated seats—Krishnanagar (Mahua Moitra), Barasat (Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar) and Bardhaman Purba (Sharmila Sarkar).

BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya accused the Trinamool of misleading people regarding the CAA. “They instilled a sense of fear among the community by confusing them and trying to divide the community. We could not counter it,” he said.
The Trinamool, during the campaign, had claimed that those applying for citizenship under the CAA would land in detention camps, “akin to what happened in Assam”.

LOSING STRONGHOLDS

The BJP lost in its supposed strongholds like Jhargram, Bankura, Cooch Behar, Medinipur, and Asansol. It lost in Jangalmahal as its Kurmi vote bank shifted to the Trinamool, say observers. Leaders who promised Scheduled Tribe status to the Kurmis failed to deliver. Outgoing Jhargram BJP MP Kunar Hembram joined the Trinamool just days before the elections.

The tribals of “Jangalmahal” who had supported the BJP in 2019 were wooed actively by Mamata Banerjee over the last five years with development schemes and many sops.
The BJP failed to retain their support and reach out to them. state BJP leaders failed to tell the tribals about the various measures that had been taken for their welfare by the Modi Government, and also convey the BJP’s concern and respect for tribals at the national level to them.

The BJP won five of the six “Jangalmahal” seats—Purulia, Bankura, Bishnupur, Jhargram and Medinipur—in 2019. Only Ghatal was won by Trinamool’s Deepak Adhikari.

But this time, the Trinamool snatched back three seats—Bankura, Jhargram and Medinipur—from the BJP, which won only the Purulia and Bishnupur seats.

There has also been a substantial erosion in support from tribals in North Bengal (who work in tea gardens) for the BJP. Though the BJP won the Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar seats that have a substantial tribal presence, the victory margins came down due to erosion of tribal support.

In Cooch Behar, the Rajbongshi vote, which is a big factor, got divided. BJP-backed Rajya Sabha member Ananta Maharaj has influence in the Rajbongshi community, but there are allegations that he was working with the Trinamool.

BJP local leaders say they banked on Trinamool Congress’ corruption to play a big part in the polls but that did not happen.

ABSENCE OF COUNTER-NARRATIVE

BJP’s attempts to make the alleged sexual assault of women in Sandeshkhali an election issue also failed. Also, unverified videos began surfacing last month of a BJP leader purportedly admitting that no rapes or sexual harassment had taken place and women were convinced to file such complaints at the directions of senior party leaders. The Trinamool comfortably won the Basirhat seat where Sandeshkhali is located.

Mamata Banerjee also built public opinion against the BJP by blaming it for the Calcutta High Court order cancelling jobs of 26,000 school teachers for irregularities in their recruitment. The BJP failed to counter that when it would have been easy to do so.
The BJP could not even effectively highlight the deep-rooted corruption and the many scams within the Trinamool Congress.

This was mostly because the state unit does not have people who can craft a quick counter-narrative to match the Trinamool’s misinformation.

Another factor that went against BJP was its delay in announcing candidates for all 42 seats in Bengal. It took almost one-and-a-half months for the party to announce its full candidate list. In contrast, the Trinamool named all its 42 nominees at one go at a huge public meeting three months in advance. While this enabled the candidates to reach out more effectively, BJP candidates like Dilip Ghosh got only 45 days to campaign in a new seat. Even Abhijit Das (Bobby) who contested against Trinamool scion Abhishek Banerjee in the marquee Diamond Harbour was named 45 days before polling day.

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