78 PARLIAMENTARIAN l juLy 2019
politics|west Bengal
Mamata should have done was to
focus on “Shilpo (Industrial) Bangla
rather than Biswa (Global) Bangla.
She should have pushed for big
infrastructural projects such as a
deep-sea port at Sagar or Tajpur and
pushed for growth in tourism by
taking advantage of Bengal’s climatic
diversity in a relatively small
geographic area. After all, tourism
creates more employment than hi-
tech industry. Mamata did make
some progress in tourism but not of
the kind that could match Kerala.
She took some initiative for
generation of new IT ventures
focused on areas such as Artificial
Intelligence but Bengal needed SEZs
for the IT sector.”
To compound the problem was
growing unemployment and
underemployment, which are at the
root of the BJP’s sudden popularity.
From the perspective of realpolitik,
the BJP was able to successfully
identify the demographics that could
bolster its electoral push.hindutva realpolitik
In the once semi-industrial belts of
North 24 Parganas, where over the
years hundreds of thousands of
migrants from Bihar and UP had
settled, the BJP pushed for
celebrating Ram Navami and other
socio-religious functions of no
consequence to the larger Bengali-
speaking population.
It was a strange but effective brand
of Hindutva that helped mobilise the
non-Bengali, Hindi speaking
population. To battle Mamata’s
Muslim appeasement, the BJP used
such Hindutva tools as legitimate
means to make a crack.
A more potent weapon was the
unabashed use of the deadly issue of
the National Register of Citizens,
whose application in Assam had wonthe BJP rich political-electoral
dividend, and the 2016 Citizenship
(Amendment) Bill which promised
to grant citizenship to millions of
Bangladeshi Hindu immigrants
settled illegally across Kolkata and
other parts of the state. The Bill and
the promise associated with it helped
the party mobilise the Hindu
immigrants in ways that could
balance the weight of large Muslim
support for the TMC.
While the periodic and episodic
use of the CBI and the corruption
cases that hung over some TMC
leaders worked to the BJP’s
advantage, the real body blow for
Mamata’s party was the almost
wholesale shifting of the Left vote to
the saffron party.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram
Yechury was candid enough to admit
this shift which party cadres on the
ground rationalised as the only
means to stay safe from TMC-
orchestrated violence against them.
What Mamata failed to do was to
ensure a broad-based alliance
between the TMC, the Congress and
the Marxist parties to prevent the so-
called “secular” vote from splitting.
On the one hand, she did not tryhard enough to stitch this alliance
and on the other “payoffs” on the
ground by the BJP helped the Left
voters to go out in droves to vote for
the former. The Left is finished in
West Bengal, but even in its death
throes the CPI(M) has ensured,
perhaps for all times to come, that
there could be a credible opposition
to the rising and frightening tide of
right-wing politics in the state.confident BJp
On its part, the BJP doesn’t even have
to project an alternative plan to
revive Bengal’s economy for its
ruthless strategists know only too
well that progressively lethal doses of
Hindutva and other means,
legitimate or otherwise, will catapult
it to power sooner than even the
party believes.
The writing on the wall for
Mamata is clear: the BJP is now on
the ascendant in Bengal and to stop
it in its track would be well-nigh
impossible at this juncture. After its
spectacular electoral performance in
the state, the BJP will not quite slow
down its march to capture power. It
has already begun to chip away at the
TMC’s legislators who are pulling
out in ones and twos to join the BJP
fold.
Already, the buzz is that BJP
strategists are in “talks” with 58
TMC MLAs and will slowly but
surely cause the cracks in Mamata’s
outfit to widen before the inevitable
blow is delivered. Mamata is fully
aware that her seeming invincibility
just three years ago will not last too
long as she faces an imminent crisis.
She has hired the services of political
and electoral strategist Prashant
Kishor who in the past has proved
his mettle. But this move may not
pay off because Bengal is primed for
another parivartan.whispers Turned inTo
TorrenTs of puBlic
anger when iT was
revealed ThaT some
of her aBsTracT
painTings were sold
for a few crores