A man carrying around 250 voter ID cards was detained in Nadia district of West Bengal. This was in October -- and it all happened days before the Election Commission began the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state.
West Bengal goes to the polls in early 2026 along with Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. A fierce battle is on the cards in West Bengal where the BJP sees itself at a striking distance to power. Obviously, Mamata Banerjee has grown nervous.
The Trinamool regime came to power in 2011 ousting the 34-years rule of the communists. Hence, anti-incumbency mood of 15 long years will be strong enough.
Mamata Banerjee's worries are increasing by the day. A large number of Voter-Cardless Bangladeshis have moved closer to the border areas in her state keen to crossover as they fear the ongoing SIR exercise will identify them soon.
Drama ... "aapa"
Now she is playing the 'outsiders' card against the BJP.
In fact since 2020 or so ... Mamata Banerjee has never lost an opportunity to make political capital of West Bengal’s cultural exceptionalism.
Mamata knows her Muslim-appeasing 'sister' image was not enough. She also had to play out other games - the local versus outsiders card. Even for 2021 electoral battle, she had urged the voters to not allow leaders from Gujarat dictate political terms in West Bengal.
The BJP's big achievement in 2021 was not the number of seats. But rather they achieved ‘something’ which was not possible in Bengal without ‘Bhadralok intelligentsia’. Never in state’s history, were the upper castes and Kolkata-based intellectuals and their Left-liberalism -- more often anti-Hindu - got so much marginalised.
Look at the double standards. The Bengal media simply ignored the gruesome post-poll violence meted out to poor people in 2021 after Mamata again won the polls. The Left and Congress scored 'zero' each and the BJP emerged as the principal opposition party and hence also a formidable force.
In many areas in 2021; the Lotus party could win support of backward castes - Rajbongshis and Namasudras - despite the Hindutva politics. Mamata's and earlier the Leftists' appeasement made Muslims aggressive and the brunt of that was faced by rural Bengal Hindus - SCs, STs and OBCs.
"In Bengal, the upper caste trio belonging to Brahmin,Kayastha and Baidya who together constitute less than a fifth of the population in the state, yet, they have been dominating in every walk of life," said the prestigious news magazine 'Mainstream' once edited by the illustrious Nikhil Chalravarty.
Mamata thus has been "unfailing" in her insistence that the BJP is a party of the Hindi belt and is unable to either understand and respect the culture of Bengal.
In 2021, the BJP did a few political mistakes. A correction has been made. This time the BJP leaders including PM Narendra Modi will not make personal attack on Mamata.
The Lotus party has also cleverly "blended its all-India credentials" with an organic local leadership. Trinamool's nativism and negatvism may not have much impact.
The BJP has made corruption a primary campaign issue, focusing on ongoing CBI and ED investigations that have led to the arrests of several senior TMC leaders and state ministers.
Highlighting visuals of seized cash and irregularities in recruitment scams has helped the BJP.
Women's Safety Issues:
Incidents like the Sandeshkhali case, involving allegations of land grab and sexual abuse by TMC strongmen, have been used by the BJP to attack the TMC's image, particularly among women voters.
Thousands of junior doctors in the state have been on a strike in August 2024 when the body of the 31-year-old woman medico was found at the state-run hospital where she worked. The crime sparked nationwide outrage and hit Mamata's credibility as a public leader and an administrator.
Even this year such an incident was reported from Durgapur. "The girl student, a Dalit, was not gang raped inside the college campus. Hence, the responsibility of ensuring her rests with the police and state administration," BJP leader Amit Malviya said mounting pressure.
Mamata did a mistake under pressure and suggested young female students should not move out in the night. This - as expected - backfired.
Erosion of Opposition support:
The long-standing decline of the Left Front and the Congress in West Bengal has created an opposition vacuum, allowing the BJP to position itself as the primary alternative to the Trinamool.
But as the saying goes; in democracy people are the masters.
What will be decisive is how Bengal voters perceive their future.
A state which has moved from being among the two most developed provinces at Independence to becoming the largest supplier of migrant labour (both unskilled and highly skilled) is a matter of deep concern.
People posted out of West Bengal as punishment later realise they have been rewarded.
The NRBs - non resident Bengalis - is a reality with many individuals and families these days.
The extortion-syndicate and other modes of high-handedness of Trinamool have frustrated people and created ground against entrepreneurship.
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| Nadia man and his 'packet' of fake cards |
West Bengalis have other problems.
Even the word 'babudom' making it akin to bureaucracy in India is also a gift from the state only as hundreds of 'Bengali clerks' working under British colonial masters posed themselves as doing something extra ordinary preferred to be addressed as 'Babus' and some as 'bara Babus'.
Alapan Bandyopadhyay, one time West Bengal chief secretary under Mamata, making news rather for wrong reasons and 'avoiding' a meeting even with Prime Minister of India on cyclone just to please his political boss in Kolkata's power centre shows things are rotten at the roots.
Of course, those who ruled the state for 34 years – the Leftists ought to get their share of the credit or blame.
According to a former Secretary and a retired officer in the state, the likes of Anish Majumdar, N Krishnamurthi, Rathin Sengupta and T C Dutt were made Chief Secretaries during the erstwhile Basu government because they were “either not given to taking tough stance or they were viewed as the pro-communists”.
The state also had a unique cadre of officials and 'sympathisers' called the “street cadre".
Another vital message is related to media functioning. The media coverage of Bengal polls in 2021 by Kolkata's tabloid variety of a newspaper or a popular Chennai house suggested a "selective agenda in some section of the media" to paint only one party (BJP) of polarising the elections on religious lines.
In fact, the notion of so called 'Hindu polarisation' even in Gujarat leaves a lot to ponder about.
When the mainstream media in the country and abroad was painting Gujarat into an extremely polarised state, the BJP was able to garner only 49.8 % of total vote share even if presumed they were entirely Hindu voters, it falls much below their population of 88.6 % in the state.
For BJP's poll managers and the key planner Amit Shah, yet again hands are full as the Lotus party possibly has the best chance to capture in onetime red-bastion where the BJP used to be made fun of.
ends
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