The showdown between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Bengal with the state Assembly polls only a few months away is an example of fierce and ferocious duel to both grab and retain power. To achieve their aims, both the contenders are resorting to methods flouting norms of decency and Constitutional propriety. The prize for the BJP is to get to rule Bengal for the first time and use its untapped resources for itself and the corporate world itching to invest in a land of opportunities. More importantly, it is toppling Mamata Banerjee who, today, stands as the only opposition to the sway of the BJP. All other non-BJP Chief Ministers have either bowed before the whims and diktats of the Center or those who belong to the Congress are convenient punch bags that the saffron party would prefer to retain. Bashing the already crumbling Congress edifice is very easy. Apart from the party, the Gandhi family has been somewhat successfully built up as the arch enemy of every true Hindoo. This public mistrust and dislike towards the Gandhis strengthen the BJP even in indefensible scenarios. On the other hand, a Mamata type of personality, unwilling to bend, with no big corruption charges and being a Hindoo Brahmin herself, poses a threat that the BJP would not like to face at the national level. Therefore, elimination of Mamata is understandably high on the BJP agenda.
For the Trinamool it is to win the consecutive third term in office and enjoy power as well as retain the anti-BJP stance. With the Left parties and the Congress relegated to the position of distant third and fourth positions, Bengal is witnessing a battle between a rightist ideology that has been foreign to its soil and a hotchpotch of grassroots politics that started with the promise to work for the dispossessed, farmers and women but ended up getting mired in abuse of power.
The war of attrition between the BJP and the Trinamool has been continuing for the past few months, but it has got national attention after a dastardly attack on the motorcade of the BJP president JP Nadda last week when he was going to campaign for the party at Diamond Harbour, the turf of Trinamool MP Abhisekh Banerjee, who is a nephew and heir apparent of Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee. The selection of the place for the campaign itself is of great political significance not simply because of its connection with the ruling family of the state but also due to the aunt-nephew combine being the pivot of the BJP’s electoral strategy to vertically split the Trinamool Congress exploiting the grouse that top party leaders have been nursing against the two for the rise of the nephew at their cost. This, the BJP leadership hopes, will play a key role in its dream to make the lotus bloom in Bengal.
The attack on the convoy of Nadda reflects poorly on the state administration, while the explanation given by the Trinamool is even more ludicrous. According to TMC, Nadda, enjoying Z Plus security cover, “hadn’t informed the local thana of his plan to visit Diamond Harbour, allowed 50 motor cyclists in a rally and 30 supporters’ vehicles to be part of his convoy”. According to the Trinamool’s logic this was the reason for the administration’s failure to prevent the attack. It further argues the Director General of Police had deployed, for Nadda’s security, a huge posse of police officials along the route and at the venue. The question about how the attack could take place despite providing such an elaborate security cover remains unanswered. The Trinamool even attributes the attack to the presence of a BJP activist facing 59 criminal cases who was travelling along with Nadda, raising slogans and provocative gestures at Trinamool supporters. It further alleges the attack had been masterminded by the BJP itself as its activists were video-graphing the entire rally so as to make it an all-India issue in the media.
The BJP-government at the Centre retaliated by summoning the state Chief Secretary and the DGP to meet the Union Home Secretary for the breach of security and transferred the IPS officers in charge of security to Delhi. This triggered protest from the state and the ruling party which slammed the Centre for violating Constitutional propriety, law and order being a State subject under the 7th Schedule of the State List of the Constitution.
It’s indeed a brazen show of power by the BJP at the Centre lending itself to the charge of interfering with state affairs and breaching Centre-State relationship. Already, the Narendra Modi-government has been accused of encroaching into state’s powers by passing the three controversial Farm Bills, agriculture being a State subject.
But, since everything is considered fair in love and war and in recent times power politics has been included in that list, the BJP has become a past master at following this strategic principle in capturing power at the Centre and the states. Winning Bengal this time around will have immense symbolic, strategic and material value for the BJP in national politics.