New Delhi: The Lok Sabha election results from West Bengal are more a story of Trinamool Congress’ stunning downfall than of Bharatiya Janata Party’s spectacular rise in the state. And the primary reason behind this is, say observers, polarisation. Add to this the excesses committed on the ground by a TMC cadre often motivated by self preservation and self interest, as well as the promise of Narendra Modi’s “touch of development” and Bengal finds itself firmly in the national mainstream after 42 long years—after 1977 when the CPM-led Left, akin to a regional outfit, won the state after Emergency was lifted and elections were held.
In 2016, when Mamata Banerjee stormed back to power with a mandate of 211 of 294 (out of 295) Assembly seats, the consensus in West Bengal was that she was set to rule the state for another ten years, minimum. Bengal was a state that had given the Left 34 years, and the least that it could do was give the lady who had uprooted the deeply entrenched comrades was 15-20 years. But in 2019, when the TMC has won 22 Lok Sabha seats of the state’s 42, and the BJP 18—two have gone to the Congress and zero to the Left—the situation is such that in terms of Assembly seats, TMC is ahead in around 160 segments, with the BJP ahead in around 120 odd seats. In terms of vote percentage, TMC got a little over 43%, while the BJP a little over 40%.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the TMC got around 40% votes, the Left 30%, Congress around 10% and the BJP 17%. While, in the 2019 LS elections, TMC got 43.29% votes, BJP 40.23%, the Left got 7.47% and the Congress 5.61%. TMC leaders claim that BJP vote percentage increased because the Left and Congress vote shifted to the BJP and not their vote. What they do not say is that TMC got a vote share of almost 46% in the 2016 Assembly elections, so it is likely that the decrease in TMC’s own vote share has been in the range of 3%-4% minimum. In fact, media in Bengal is claiming that TMC’s “increase” or “retention” of its vote share is primarily because of consolidation of Muslim votes in its favour, with an eye to defeat BJP. Those Muslims who went to Left and Congress earlier have mostly abandoned the two parties and have migrated to TMC. Unofficial estimates are that around 100 Assembly seats in the state are decided by minority voters, in a state that has a Muslim population of 27.01% according to the 2011 Census. The actual percentage could be 30% or much more. That there would be a reaction to this “demographic change” in a state that was partitioned along religious lines in 1947 and witnessed the worst communal riots, was a given.
The faultlines had started becoming visible ahead of even the Assembly elections in 2016, when infiltration by illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, demographic changes in the border districts and radicalisation of a section of the minority community had started becoming topics of discussion, as this writer found during a visit to the state at the time. This was the time when an attack on the police station in Kaliachak and Hindu areas in the Muslim majority Malda district by a mob of minority community members became national news. However, it didn’t result in much polarisation on the ground, except for the BJP winning one Assembly seat, Baishnabnagar, in Kaliachak’s neighbourhood, where Hindus voted en masse for the national party. But then 2016 was about re-electing Mamata Banerjee and she got a handsome mandate.
The situation started deteriorating soon after that. There have been several communal conflagrations in the state, demographic changes even in certain majority community-dominated areas in Kolkata have become pronounced; “astitwer shankat (existential threat)” has become an oft repeated phrase; fear of going the Kashmir Pandit-way is no longer considered an over-reaction at least by a section of the population; while Mamata government’s obvious and sometimes over-the-top policies of minority appeasement and what was seen as denigration of the majority community—such as the appointment of Firhad Hakim as a member of the Tarakeshwar Temple Board—aggravated the matter. Under-reporting by the media of communal violence, refusal by intellectuals to admit that the division exists and the fear of state policing, led to such discussions going “underground”. In an age of social media, BJP also helped the latent fear to come to the surface by smartly playing its Hindutva card. Mamata Banerjee by her over-reaction to slogans like “Jai Shri Ram” turned it into a symbol of protest. The situation became so bad that she took to reciting Vedic mantras in public meetings to prove her religious credentials, TMC cadre started taking out Ram Navami processions, clubs were encouraged to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi, doles were showered on Durga Puja organising committees. But things had gone out of hand by then. The dam was waiting to burst and how it burst!
HOW THE DAM BURST
In the Muslim majority Malda Uttar (North Malda) seat, a fortress of the A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chaudhury family, the unthinkable happened: Khagen Murmu of the BJP—an import from the CPM—emerged victorious primarily because the Hindu vote consolidated in his favour and the Muslim vote got divided between two members of the Ghani Khan family, Isha Khan of the Congress and sitting MP Mausam Noor who had migrated to the TMC from Congress. The fight was expected to be between the two members of the Ghani Khan family, but it became three cornered and the BJP won the seat.
BJP insiders admit that it is primarily because of en masse voting by Hindus that they have won a chunk of seats this time. BJP doesn’t have any organisation worth its name in Bengal and whatever mobilisation has taken place in its favour has been largely organic, that is self-motivated. The voters, particularly in the rural and semi-rural seats, mobilised themselves. “Even the CPM-Congress vote that shifted to us was primarily because of reasons of religious polarisation,” said someone from Mukul Roy’s team.
Even in the highly urban seats of Kolkata Uttar, Kolkata Dakshin and adjoining Jadavpur, BJP’s study of voting patterns suggests that a majority of municipal corporation wards under control of the TMC and with high Hindu voter presence have gone the BJP’s way. The TMC has picked up substantial leads from minority dominated wards, which helped them win these seats.
The only exception was perhaps the seat of Jangipur, from where Pranab Mukherjee’s son, sitting Congress MP Abhijit was contesting. Both TMC and BJP fielded Muslim candidates from there and ended up getting around 43% and 24% votes respectively, while Abhijit Mukherjee finished a poor third at 19%.
The consensus in political circles is that if Mamata Banerjee had allowed free and fair voting to take place in the panchayat elections of 2018, anger against her would not be boiling over. But village after village was not allowed to come out to vote last year. Even otherwise, complaints abounded about atrocities by the police and party cadre. Lawlessness, corruption and violence became talking points, with the TMC cadre alleged to be indulging in similar strong-arm tactics that they were subjected to once by the Left. TMC leaders claim that the leadership does not know about the kind of lawlessness that prevails on the ground. But those belonging to BJP allege that the TMC’s top echelon deliberately turns a blind eye to the goings-on, as corruption or violence is the only way that the cadre can make a living in a state that does not have any industry because of which employment is scarce. Tales of humungous wealth won through corruption became stuff that urban legends are made of.
People were waiting for revenge.
The buzz this time among voters was that “chup chap phule chhap (stay silent and vote for the flower)”, the slogan that brought about the downfall of the Left. The flower at the time was TMC’s election symbol. This time the flower was Narendra Modi’s—the kamal—lotus.
MORE THAN A TOEHOLD
Now that the BJP has got more than a toehold in the state, party insiders claim that at least 40 TMC MLAs are waiting to switch sides, as well as two just elected TMC MPs. BJP insiders also claim that the desertions will happen soon and West Bengal may see Assembly elections much earlier than in the scheduled 2021. BJP insiders also say now that they have 18 Lok Sabha seats, the party organisation will grow naturally in the state, and their thrust will be on Citizenship Amendment Bill, Hindutva, and Modi-style governance. Faced with an onslaught from a national party which has major resources at its disposal as well as acceptability among Bengal’s masses, TMC leaders admit that they have a fight in hand—a fight for their party’s existence.