The Battle of Bengal: An epicentre of Indian Politics

The liberal ideals injected into most educated Bengalis will still be alive with “Left” or tilt towards “Right” this Time. Mamata Banerjee (Didi) with Prashant Kishore will take on BJP, or the BJP will take it all this Time, yet to be seen.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha – General elections, Mamata Banerjee was among the few who could successfully halt Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s juggernaut. She added 27 seats to her kitty in the very next state assembly elections of 2016 after the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections. Her Trinamool Congress (TMC) secured 211 out of the 294 seats in that election, while the BJP managed to win just three seats. So, where is the challenge? Has the Time changed a lot now? Why Didi has moved to Nandigram to fight against her former aide Suvendu Adhikari?

A lot of water has gone under Howrah Bridge since then, the Time has changed; though she managed to stave off the second NaMo wave in the Lok Sabha polls of 2019, Didi’s party was poorly left battered. She retained 22 of the total 42 parliament seats in West Bengal while the BJP shot through the roof to secure an incredible number of 18 MPs in place of only two that BJP had won earlier. It was almost as if the BJP’s slogan – ‘Unishe half, Ekushe saaf’ (halve TMC in 2019, finish it off in 2021) is coming alive?

Assembly elections tested whether a ‘jote’, or alliance, between the Left Front, led by the CPI(M), and the Congress could successfully uproot the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in West Bengal. That experiment failed clearly. The Lokniti-CSDS post-poll analysis reveals that in contrast to the ‘mahagathbandhan’ in Bihar or the BJP-AGP-BPF combine in Assam, the chemistry of a Left-Congress alliance was not conducive to electoral victory in West Bengal. Insofar as the coalition did succeed, it worked more to Congress’s benefit than the Left’s.

Over the following decades, however, refugees streamed in lakhs, but the CPI (M) and Communist parties played a sterling role in de-communalizing disgruntled displaced masses. They needed them for class wars and political agitations. However, even the most optimistic secular Bengali will admit — there has been an unbelievable polarization this Time, especially of Hindus and of Muslims as well to an extent. The March of BJP and Assaduddin Owaisi, Pirzada Abbas Siddiqui have potentially split the votes into both sides.