Sujit Bhar
The result in the West Bengal Assembly elections can be understood from three angles. First, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress in 2016, won 211 seats, a landslide victory. But the opposition was weak and Mamata’s position was good.
This year, Mamata’s position before the elections was weak, with allegations of graft, with old party colleagues leaving and a ‘bhaipo’ spectre looming on the horizon. Also, she was fighting the massively strong and organized election machinery of the BJP. So, crossing the 211-mark this time was probably a greater feat. Yet, the result was not unexpected, considering the appeal of ‘Banglar meye’ (daughter of Bengal) that she gave out, one that BJP failed to counter.
Second, the BJP’s election machinery is well known. If you look at the outcome from their aspirational level – we’ll easily cross 200, as Amit Shah had said – they have performed rather poorly. However, if you realize that they have grown to be where they are from a strength of just 3 MLAs, they have grown phenomenally.
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Third, the BJP again. Most of the recent ‘imports’ into BJP have fared poorly. Like the CPIM, the BJP, too, is a grassroots, cadre-based party. Through the RSS, the BJP has been working in the fields of Bengal for a long time. That’s why their rural vote share has been very good. But the top leadership of the BJP believed that importing TMC turncoats and carpet bombing the electorate with people like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, J.P. Nadda, and even Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath was a better strategy than listening to their old workers.
The sheer disaffection this generated among the lower levels of the party – especially when they heard the huge amounts the imports demanded and got – was enough for the base to slowly fall away.
If the BJP got to this high number from the figure of 3, it was because of the tireless work of the grassroots workers who were neglected.
The lesson for the BJP would be to reassess its base strength. The lesson for Mamata would be that the distant thunder has just been postponed for five years, not blown away for good.