Having won Bihar in a landslide, the BJP’s next big challenge is the neighbouring state of West Bengal, where it has struggled despite emerging as the primary Opposition force five years ago and faces a formidable opponent in Trinamool Congress (TMC), the ruling party that has successfully mobilised identity politics to counter its Hindutva plus development pitch.
That Bengal was the next big target for the BJP from among the four states going to polls next year was apparent when Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to it in his victory speech on November 14 after the Bihar win. “The victory in Bihar has paved the way for the BJP’s triumph in Bengal. I want to assure the people of West Bengal that, with your support, the BJP will put an end to the Jungle Raj in the state as well,” the PM said.
The BJP has already decided upon 10 points as its campaign theme in Bengal, including poor law-and-order situation, corruption, illegal immigration, national security, and “subversion” of democracy, and communicated it to local leaders. Union Minister Bhupender Yadav, the party’s West Bengal election in-charge, holds a weekly meeting with a core group of leaders in Kolkata to monitor the preparations, sources said. Party workers in 80,000 booths across the state have been assigned responsibilities to strengthen the organisation.
The party’s biggest challenge, according to senior leaders The Indian Express spoke to, is to get rid of the “outsider” tag that TMC chairperson and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee managed to successfully use against it in the 2021 election. Banerjee framed that election as a contest between a party of “outsiders” and a “daughter of Bengal (the TMC’s poll slogan was Bangla nijer meye ke chaye, or Bengal wants its daughter)”.
“Last time, we made many mistakes. Not making an aggressive attempt to counter the TMC’s campaign against the BJP of being a party of outsiders was a grave one,” said a party leader. The state unit of the party led by Samik Bhattacharya will work to highlight the party’s origins in West Bengal — Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee was from the state — and the assimilation of its ideology with Bengali culture.
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“The fact that the BJP’s origin is traced to West Bengal and it is the direct successor to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh will be a key part of the campaign. Also, unlike in the past, we will not have many leaders who are from outside the state as key personalities in decision-making,” said a party source involved with electioneering in West Bengal for almost a decade.
“The party will be careful in opening its doors for leaders from other parties on the eve of elections, a mistake we made last time. One of the criteria for candidate selection will be the candidate’s base and roots in the party and its ideology. Young, clean, and educated faces will be there to lift the image,” said a source.
To emphasise the Bengali identity of the party, the party has taken to strategically using slogans such as “Joy Maa Kali” and “Joy Maa Durga” (Bhattacharya garlanded a Kali portrait at one of his first events after taking over as state BJP president). The appointment of the new state unit chief was also meant to send a signal to the upper-caste and upper-class Bengali bhadralok community.
“The BJP is the only national party founded by a Bengali. Our party in West Bengal has only Bengalis as its leaders, but the TMC used Bengali asmita (pride) as an election issue. But it is Mamata Banerjee who made a Maharashtrian a Rajya Sabha MP from the state (Saket Gokhale). She had made two non-Bengalis, Shatrughnan Sinha and Yusuf Pathan, Lok Sabha MPs, thus reducing the number of Bengali MPs in Parliament,” Union Minister and former state BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar told The Indian Express.
Majumdar said “such facts” would form a key part of the BJP’s campaign. “We are conscious of the tag the TMC tried to put on us. We have already succeeded in proving that it was just a political stunt. We will be doing it aggressively in the campaign,” he said.
While the TMC has a mass leader at the helm in the form of CM Mamata Banerjee, BJP leaders said the party was unlikely to project a CM face to lead its campaign. “We will contest the election with our collective leadership from the state and with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as our face,” Darjeeling MP Raju Bista told The Indian Express.
Once the campaign picks up, the thrust will be on exposing the failures of the state government. “Its failure in ensuring the security of women and to honour its slogan, ‘Maa, Mati, Manush (Mother, Motherland and People)’ will be our key point,” said a young BJP leader in the state.
“Our primary focus right now is to help and assist our citizens through the ongoing SIR initiated by the Election Commission. We have set up helpdesks across the state to assist the citizens through the process. Drawing from the experiences of the 2021 elections, we’re working on grassroots outreach and focusing on strengthening the party by forming and reforming booth-level teams. Our core agenda will be to restore combat the subversion of democracy, law and order, eradicating corruption and nepotism, stopping illegal immigration, and driving holistic development,” Bista said.