West Bengal battle

With the key states going to the polls, 2021's summer is going to be very hot in India--not just the weather but the political temperature too. Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerela, Puducherry and most significantly, West Bengal will hold elections and see high-voltage campaigns. West Bengal will go to polls in eight phases between March 27 and April 29, with first phase of polling for 30 seats on March 27. The results will be declared on May 2. The West Bengal polls are essentially about which of the two brands will win: Didi's TMC or Modi's BJP.

West Bengal was first a bastion of the Left Front. The state is now a bastion of Trinamool Congress (TMC). Land was the issue around which the CPM mobilised rural voters and won seven consecutive elections. The 34-year rule of the Left Front was marked not just by the progressive land reforms and welfare schemes, but also capture of the state institutions. In the beginning, the TMC had a movement character which enabled the party to successfully challenge the electoral hegemony of the Left that lasted 34 years until 2011.

The Nandigram 2007 land agitation was the breakthrough for TMC to deliver a final blow to the Left Front government in West Bengal. In 2011 assembly election, TMC won an absolute majority of seats defeating the Left Front. The Trinamool repeated the success in 2016. But the party is facing a crisis now. The defection of influential Trinamool leader Suvendhu Adhikari with eight TMC lawmakers and dozens of local body representatives to BJP is a major setback for the West Bengal Chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Adhikari was Banerjee's lieutenant in the Nandigram movement. Filling the vacuum left by such a resourceful politician will be difficult. When such a leader asks question of the party chief and the party, there are many who listen. If more defections occur, this will create confusion in Trinamool ranks and hurt its re-election prospects.

The BJP is now eying Bengal as the next big prize after its robust performance in the neighbouring state of Bihar. The BJP emerged as the senior partner in the NDA alliance with Janata Dal (United) in Bihar and the coalition succeeded to another term in office. The BJP, eager to spread its footprint in West Bengal, has moved into the opposition space in West Bengal. Its performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections picking up 18 of 42 West Bengal seats and over 40 per cent votes put the Mamata government on notice and made deep and significant inroads in the state.

The party believes it can do better this time and dislodge the Mamata government. It is now relying on a set of techniques to expand its hold. It is co-opting leaders from TMC and other parties, raising issues like CAA and the NRC, banking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity and anti-incumbency against Trinamool Congress. It is also banking on a set of defectors from the TMC who are deeply rooted in West Bengal politics. But West Bengal matters to the BJP because it is one eastern Indian state where BJP has never been able to make substantial inroads until 2019.

The Congress and the Left Front have finally clinched a tie-up to fight the ruling TMC and a resurgent BJP. Both have been cooperating at the national level for several years and were partners in the recent assembly elections in Bihar. The leaders of the alliance evidently hope that voters will view it as a third option to the Trinamool and the BJP in the state. Congress-Trinamool combine effectively makes the West Bengal election a three-cornered fight.

It is hoping to attract those anti-Trinamool voters uncomfortable about BJP's growing footprint in the state. The tie-up is complicated by the fact that they are pitted against each other in Kerela, where polls are due at the same time alongside West Bengal. The voters could view the tie-up as a cynical ploy or a marriage of convenience.

Winning an election is not an easy business. It needs a careful and precise planning and a balanced application of calculus for harvesting votes. As the 2019 election results, the three plus per cent distance separates BJP from the TMC. In 2016, its vote share in the state assembly polls was 10.2 per cent. In 2014 Lok Sabha polls the BJP's vote share was 17 per cent. The BJP rose dramatically, winning more than 40 per cent of the votes and 18 of 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019. Since then, the BJP has mounted an aggressive campaign and turned West Bengal politics into a bipolar affair occupying one pole.

With significant Muslim voters in around one-third of the total 294 constituencies, which is about 30 per cent of West Bengal's voting population, Mamata will certainly be concerned about a second claimant of her carefully nurtured vote-bank. The Left-Congress combine, the third front, has a new ally in the Indian Secular Front (ISF) led by Pirzada Abbas Siddiqui, a cleric of the shrine of Furfura Sharif in Hoogly district. It is quite evident that Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM members too will contest election as Pirzada's party candidates.

AIMIM's successful performance in the recent Bihar assembly polls was crucial factor in the RJD-Congress-Left combine's failure to defeat the NDA in the tight contest there. The Left and the West Bengal Congress believe ISF will help bring back Muslim votes from the Trinamool Congress, thus creating post-poll possibilities of a hung assembly. Like TMC, they too believe monopoly over Muslim vote can dominate the political scene of West Bengal. If the Left-Congress-ISF combine splits anti-Trinamool vote, this will benefit the incumbent, the TMC. Likewise if it splits anti-BJP vote, this will benefit the challenger, the BJP.

Mamata Banerjee has hit the campaign trail hard and is projecting BJP as an outsider, Hindi heartland party. She is invoking Bengali pride to counter the rush of Hindi heartland leaders campaigning against her. The BJP is projecting itself as a party of change and attempting to ride anti-incumbency against Ms Banerjee. Both sides have two distinct narratives. The Trinamool claims it has reversed the stagnation during the 34-years left rule and warns that communal harmony is under threat. The BJP challenges Trinamool's narrative on development and accuses Trinamool of minority appeasement.

West Bengal is the doorway to the north-eastern states of India. BJP knows well that without a firm foothold in West Bengal, it would not be able to hold to power in Assam and other north-eastern states. BJP is sensing a huge opportunity in West Bengal and leaving no stone unturned to make the lotus bloom in the state. But Mamata is a political fighter and cannot be underestimated. She ably fought a long battle to unseat the Left. She has her personal charisma and a direct appeal among the masses. But both sides seem evenly matched in resources and there is no doubt that West Bengal will see a tight fight this year.
The writer is political analyst and an advocate practicing at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh