BENGAL ELECTION -- A BATTLE OF ATTRITION

The Assembly election 2021 in West Bengal is going to be very eventful and challenging. The Mamata government is working hard against possible anti-incumbency, while the BJP is putting all efforts to seize power to rule the state. For both sides the stakes are so high that the election in Bengal is turning into an unpredictable, no-holds-barred spectacle. Whatever be the result of the election, it will be a turning point.

Reports are pouring in that the BJP is facing serious internal dissension following its decision to field defector from Trinamool Congress in preference to its own old timers. 

The joke doing the rounds in Bengal is that the contest is actually between Trinamool ‘A’ team versus Trinamool ‘B’ team with virtually half the candidates fielded by BJP being defectors from Trinamool, some joining BJP as recently as this month after they were dropped by Trinamool Congress.

As the list of candidates have been declared, BJP has fielded it's sitting MPs for contesting Assembly election. I think it is not uncommon with BJP as we have seen even in the recent Hyderabad Municipal election BJP brought in all prominent faces to register their massive surge from 4 seats in 2016 to 48 seats in 2020 to be on the 2nd place after Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) which bagged 55 seats. At 44 seats, the AIMIM trailed the saffron party at No. 3 position.

West Bengal is a "do and die" election for both the parties -- BJP and TMC -- not for the Left front and the Congress as these two parties are at the ebb of their political status. 

It will be incorrect to say that sitting MPs have been fielded by BJP because they do not have candidates. In fact BJP is putting all their forces on the ground and sitting MPs are also part of their bastion just like ex-Mohun Bagan and India footballer Kalyan Choubey and Tollywood personalities Srabanti Chatterjee, Payel Sarkar, Rudranil Ghosh and Parno Mittra. It is for a strategic advantage the political heavyweights and sitting MPs like Babul Supriyo, Nisith Pramanik, Locket Chatterjee and Swapan Dasgupta have been fielded in the assembly poll fray to take on the Trinamool’s might. A safe ticket for Tarakeshwar seat in District Hooghly has been given to Swapan Dasgupta keeping in view the favourable caste driven momentum which may work for BJP.

Locket Chatterjee's election constituency is Singur in District Hooghly, which has been one of the launching pads along with Nandigram of District East Midnapore, for Mamata to come in power. Ms Chatterjee is a street fighter. The BJP might have considered fielding her from her own Singur constituency due to her track record. 

TMC was the first to release the list of candidates and it is the TMC which first gave her sitting Rajya Sabha MP, Manas Ranjan Bhunia the ticket to contest in the West Bengal Assembly Election 2021 from Sabang constituency of Cooch Behar. Six-time Congress MLA and former President of the Congress’ West Bengal unit, Manas Ranjan Bhunia, jumped ship to the Trinamool Congress in 2016. 

Hence for both the parties winnability is the major factor that may emanate from other political factors like class, caste, regional or personal factor for building momentum. They are fielding their best bet so as to avoid any loss of seat in the election 2021.

Rajbanshi factor is a very important and big vote bank in North Bengal especially due to the peaceful situation prevailing now after agitation for statehood by their supporters and separatist elements in the Rajbanshi. Rajbanshis will play a major role in Bengal Assembly elections. The word Rajbanshi literally means royal community whose homelands include the northern part of West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal, Meghalaya and other areas of the North-East. The members of this tribe hailed from what was once called Kamtapur.

West Bengal has Koch Rajbanshis who are a tribal community which originally hailed from the ancient Koch kingdom. The royal family of Cooch Behar, wherefrom Maharani Gayatri Devi hailed, was ethnically Koch Rajbanshis.

The Koch Rajbanshis are officially recognised now as Scheduled Caste in West Bengal. 

BJP and TMC are engaged in a competition to woo the Rajbanshis. The Rajbanshis directly matter in 27 of North Bengal’s 54 Assembly segments. Indirectly, they are a factor in another dozen-plus constituencies. The stakes are high for the TMC supremo as 4 Lok Sabha constituencies – Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Raiganj – with large Rajbanshi populations were bagged by the BJP in 2019. The Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency, though a predominantly hill area seat, has remained under the BJP’s control since 2009 as the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has been partnering with the BJP. 

In the run-up to the Assembly elections, both the TMC and the BJP are, therefore, pulling out all stops to mobilise support of the Rajbanshis.

Nabanna, the new seat of CM office in Howrah city, handed over a 13-acre plot for Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University for construction of a second campus at Khalishamari on February 14 to mark the birth anniversary of the Rajbanshi community’s most revered social reformer Panchanan Barmato – the icon’s birthplace – in the Mathabhanga subdivision of Cooch Behar district. The next day, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee virtually laid the foundation stone for the campus at Khalishamari and also unveiled a bronze statue of the icon on the varsity’s main campus.

Nabanna has announced formation in Bengal Police of a Narayani battalion, which has been named after the royal troops of the erstwhile princely state of Cooch Behar. The battalion is to be headquartered at the district town of Mekhliganj.

The CM announced that 200 Rajbanshi-medium schools will be recognised and schools teaching in Kamtapuri – a variant of the Rajbanshi language – will be opened in areas with a dominant community presence.

The state is to offer jobs to over 500 former militants and linkmen of the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO).  Also, the demand raised by Nasya Sheikhs, who call themselves Rajbanshi Muslims, for a development board is to be examined.

The state government’s earlier initiatives include the setting up of Rajbanshi Development and Cultural Board in 2017 and  Rajbanshi Bhasa Academy in 2012.

BJP also had back-to-back meetings and announcements. Amit Shah announced to raise a Narayani battalion in the central paramilitary forces (CPMF) and set up a training centre for such forces. The training centre is to be named after Chilarai (also known as Sukladhwaj), the younger brother of King Naranarayan. Chilarai was known to be the fiercest fighter of the Cooch Behar royal family.

Amit Shah also announced installation of a statue of Panchanan Barma and setting up of a Rajbanshi cultural centre. The projects are estimated to cost Rs 250 crore and Rs 500 crore, respectively.

Standing out in the packages of Mamata Bannerjee and Shah are the two job-generating battalions for the Bhumiputras. 

Therefore the strategic decision of BJP fielding sitting Rajbanshi MP, Nishit Pramanik from Dinhata Vidhan Sabha constituency in Cooch Behar is very significant. 

BJP and TMC are also trying to use electoral tactics to garner support to the oppressed sections of Dalits and Adivasis for votes, which as per 2011 census constitute, 23.5% (over 1.8 crore) residents of the state from SC communities and 5.8% (about 53 lakh) from ST communities. The Left in West Bengal had fought for the rights of Dalits and Adivasis over decades for their struggle for economic and social emancipation. 

Strangely enough, in Bankura, Purulia, Jhargram and West Medinipur, the movement of the  Dalits and Adivasis had gained huge strength only to fall silent when Maoists and the present ruling TMC started patronising anti-Adivasi and anti-Dalit forces in that region.

To gain votes, the Sangh Parivar and BJP are propagating the Manu Smriti as the way out in West Bengal too. Contradictions between religious communities and between castes and tribes are being fanned. Even constitutional rights like reservations are being questioned openly by the upper castes, encouraged by the upholding of regressive Manu Smriti. RSS-run BJP and the TMC closely collude with each other on these issues. 

West Bengal has been seeing continuing cases of torture, rape of women and murder and arrest of Adivasi and Dalit youths on false pretexts. There have been cases of mob lynching of Dalit and Adivasi youths in the past few years. Malnutrition has become rampant in North Bengal and Jangalmahal especially after the Left government demitted office.

In this context, people are again coming under the red flag and organisations like Samajik Nyay Manch.

Another Dalit community Matua constitutes a large chunk of the state’s Scheduled Caste population is borne out by the fact that its members account for 17.4% of the state’s seven crore-plus electorate. Matuas, it can be recalled, is a displaced Dalit community from Bangladesh with a sizable vote. 

The Matuas are concentrated in North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas districts. They also have a presence in the districts of Nadia, Howrah, Malda, Cooch Behar, Uttar Dinajpur and Dakshin Dinajpur. Their voting patterns reflect directly in about 40 assembly constituencies. Indirectly they influence the results of some 25 seats. Given that West Bengal has 294 assembly constituencies, it is clear that the Matua electorate constitutes a critical mass.

Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, is trying her best to secure the maximum support of the Matua electorate.

The BJP, which substantially dented the TMC’s Matua support base in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, hopes to improve upon its performance.

A careful look at the manifestos of BJP and TMC would show that they are caste driven manifestos. The 2021 TMC manifesto sets its priority on addressing the expectations of the dissatisfied sections of every caste and community in the 2019 general election. Rs 24,000 crore has been targeted for their education apart from assurance of efforts for the promotion of minority languages like Nepali, Rajbanshi mother tongues. The Mahato community is promised ST status by Mamata. TMC has promised OBC status to Mahishyas along with a few other caste groups who were part of the list recommended by the Mandal Commission for inclusion as OBCs. Some of the other castes included are Tamul, Saha and Tili. Even BJP has also promised that it would provide reservation in the OBC category for these communities. 

The difference in addressing the caste issues is while the BJP is now trying to consolidate its hold, the Trinamool is hoping the promise of reservation will return the OBCs to it. 

Therefore unlike before, West Bengal politics today is as much a caste driven as it is in other parts of India. 

The Matua Dalits who shifted to West Bengal from East Bengal, that is now Bangladesh, are at the centre of the BJP’s politics around the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA).

The key issue this time around is the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019. Predictably, the TMC camp at Thakurnagar, the Matua Namashudra bastion, toed Mamata’s line, who has not only opposed the CAA but also declared that they would not allow its implementation in West Bengal. 

On March 27, the first day of polling in West Bengal, PM Narendra Modi will be paying obeisance to Harichand Thakur, the founder of the Matua sect, in Orakandi in Bangladesh. According to Matuas, Orakandi is their sacred place, which is not in India. But India is also their land. Matuas resent the use of the term refugees for themselves. With the community still continuing cross-border connections that are religious and social, the BJP’s idea of a rigid border between the two countries is threatening for the Matuas. Their expectation is for soft borders that should allow communications among them, though they are divided between two countries.

East Bengal became East Pakistan in 1947 on the basis of religious nationalism; in 1971 it became Bangladesh on the basis of linguistic nationalism. On both occasions millions of people crossed the border. The birth of Bangladesh unravelled the two-nation theory on the one hand, but subsequent developments pushed more non-Muslims out of the country.

Mamata Banerjee declared that Matuas were already Indian citizens and they needed no new law — she continues to maintain that position. Matua leaders in non-BJP parties demand that all those who were on the voter list in 2019 should be considered citizens without any further process. Faced with questions on its implementation, the BJP has gone silent on the CAA in 2021. Home Minister Amit Shah has said rules will be notified in due time. Non-BJP parties also don’t talk about the CAA — as any criticism of it might be widely seen as Muslim appeasement. 

Taking the campaign across the International Border that divides Bengalis on religious lines could help the BJP in the election, but it also proves the futility of the CAA as an instrument of appeasing the Matuas. Still Matuas have one satisfaction that Matua politics of the BJP is premised on the view that India is the natural homeland for all Hindus.

Thus small identities of casteist politics like Santhali, tribal, Rajbanshi or Matua identities are now growing in size and have also come to fore more than Bengali identity in West Bengal politics. All these casteist groups are now uniting into a Hindutva consolidation to form one fine line for a communal divide in West Bengal politics. Let it be an eye opener for everybody who used to claim that Bengal politics is not caste driven. In fact Bengal is also part of a caste driven society today. Mamata fielded a Naxal-convict-turned-rickshaw puller-turned a writer and Chairperson of Dalit Sahitya Academy, Manoranjan Byapari from Balagarh in Hooghly district. Even Byapari was surprised to know much later why Dalit voters in West Bengal were shifting to Manuvadi BJP inspite of Dalits all over India are anti Manuvadi. In fact RSS was silently and dedicatedly working in West Bengal for long without any gains just to consolidate their presence and strength as these are visible today. Tapan Ghosh, a Hindu nationalist leader from West Bengal and founder of his own organization Hindu Samhati, was the member of RSS. As early as in 80s at the Matua Namashudra bastion of

Thakurnagar Tapan Ghosh organised the All India Matua Festival especially when the Matuas were Ignored by the bhadraloks. So the ground was built up by RSS since then.

Another trend has come in practice in West Bengal politics, though started by TMC, to field good many Tollywood actors and actresses in elections like Moonmoon Sen, Tapas Pal, Satabdi Roy, Sandhya Roy, Dev, Mimi Chakraborty, Nusrat Jahan, Deboshree Roy, Chiranjeet Chakraborty -- all contested on a TMC ticket.

Others like actor Mithun Chakraborty, sent to the Rajya Sabha by the Trinamool in 2014, defected to the BJP.

Most of the popular actors of big names have been fielded against tough seats in 2021 Assembly election. TMC named Saayoni Ghosh as their candidate from Asansol South. Left front fielded actor Debdut Ghosh for Tollygunge seat. BJP has fielded their sitting MP Babul Supriyo for the same seat. Yash Dasgupta has been fielded by BJP from Chanditala Assembly seat in Hooghly against Mohammed Salim of CPM.

But Mamata’s experiment has not stopped here. She continues to be generous in fielding star candidates. At a press conference in the first week of March she said: “See, I have fielded young candidates.” Indeed, the star candidates are young – and definite crowd-pullers.

This time, film actor Kanchan Mullick, who has played comic roles in films, has been nominated from Uttarpara. Will he be able to override local factionalism?

Barrackpore municipality’s outgoing chairman Uttam Das of TMC who was hopeful of getting a party ticket in 2021, has openly revolted after he heard of actor Raj Chakraborty’s nomination for the seat. “I do not know Raj Chakraborty. I don’t watch films,” he said.

The star candidates have been fielded in some of the most challenging seats for the TMC in Bengal. Koushani Mukherjee nominated from the Krishnanagar Uttar constituency wherein in this Assembly segment BJP candidate Kalyan Choubey trailed by 53,551 votes against TMC MP Mohua Mitra in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Film director Raj Chakraborty has been fielded from the Barrackpore constituency, where BJP MP Arjun Singh polled 3,519 more votes than TMC candidate Dinesh Trivedi in 2019. The outgoing MLA Shilbhadra Dutta and Dinesh Trivedi both have now joined the BJP. Likewise, actor June Malia will contest Midnapore where BJP’s Dilip Ghosh had a lead of 16,641 votes, and actor Saayoni Ghosh will contest Asansol Dakshin, where BJP’s Babul Supriyo was ahead by 53,820 votes.

Thus the BJP's ambition to form its first government in West Bengal and the TMC's bid to seek a third term in power in the state has politically polarised the Bengali film industry and turned it into the parties' new battleground.

Celebrities seem Mamata Banerjee’s biggest bet against an ascendant BJP.

Mamata Banerjee puts herself as she is the candidate in all 294 seats at the end of the day. The workers are supposed to work for the supreme leader. The voters are expected to vote for “Bengal’s daughter” irrespective of the TMC candidate.

Even the performances by popular actors on makeshift stage called "macha" shows are also organised even in remote areas of Bengal for election campaigning. 

The BJP is also following the same trends which are in practice now in Bengal. Actor Payaal Sarkar, who joined BJP recently, has been nominated from Behala East, a known TMC bastion in Kolkata. Sovan Chatterjee, former Mayor of Kolkata who joined the BJP and resigned recently, is considered to wield much influence in the region. However, BJP decided to go with star power to tackle TMC candidate Ratna Chatterjee, wife of Sovan Chatterjee, for the seat. Actor Srabanti Chatterjee, the biggest name, has joined the BJP. Other than her, Rudranil Ghosh, Yash Dasgupta, Hiren Chatterjee, Papiya Adhikari are among others.

What a parivartan!!! From white dhuti-panjabi of left brigade to a tsunami of celebrities backing a starving, fasting Mamata, kaprajivi and paridhanjivi BJPs and even the Left still searching for ground.

Surprisingly, the Left Front which ruled 34 years over Bengal never ever before their rally was managed and led by any other than the Left Front Chairman. But this time, and for the first time, it was done by famous and popular actor Badshah Moitra.

The manifestos of TMC and BJP promised a slew of schemes if voted to power. In an attempt to woo the economically marginalised sections, Mamata has announced free door-to-door ration delivery,  financial assistance for the poor, under which general caste beneficiaries will get Rs 6,000 annually and backward castes will get Rs 12,000 every year. But the point is from where the money will come. The projections are misleading and the promises unrealistic. 

The BJP promised financial aid worth Rs 10,000 every year to refugees for the next five years. It also promised a monthly pension of Rs 3,000 to Matua leaders. Matuas are backward castes and numerically significant in the bordering districts of North and South 24 Parganas and Nadia. Both BJP and Trinamool are trying hard to woo the community. 

Similarly both the parties have announced beneficiary schemes for women, farmers, employment, industry and infrastructure, health and education apart from free bees in the form of direct beneficiary transfers. 

People have also lost faith in TMC which failed earlier to deliver after announcement to provide relief to actually affected ones due to Cyclone Amphan.

It is important to note that Cyclone Amphan caused massive destruction across Bengal --- ravaged at least 7 districts, caused 12 dead and damage to public property pegged at over Rs 1 lakh crore. A massive corruption and loot at the panchayat and block level came to light while implementing the state government’s Rs 6,250-crore Amphan relief package. 

‘Cut-money’, the colloquial term for extortion, in the form of corruption in the distribution of relief to people affected by Cyclone Amphan also came to fore. 

Issue of Law and order has been traditionally bad in Bengal. Ever since the formation of the state of Bengal in 1905 during the British rule, Bengal's struggle with the British had been violent. The Bengali temperament of violence flowed down the period. The culture of political violence in West Bengal of free India can be traced ever since the Congress era. Communists and Naxals were killed at the hands of the police and the Congress youth wing. The CPM was often accused of total party dominance in the rural areas, by systematically eliminating political opponents through goons and developing "para" or mohalla clubs through party-society wherein  the clubs in the locality were empowered with money and thereby authority to govern. Not only opposition parties, but members of the left front itself – such as the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), Forward Bloc and Communist Party of India (CPI) – also alleged similar violence against their party cadres and killing of Anand Margi sadhus. Mamata assumed the charge in 2011 of the government by facing CPM’s violent tactics during the land struggle in Singur and Nandigram. Later Mamata also adopted the same tactics of CPM by taking over the goons to run her party the CPM way. The party workers soon began to face charges of ‘murdering’ CPM workers and ‘capturing’ their party offices in various parts of the state. Didi followed the same line of violent control of territory and exclusion of party opponents in the same vein of party-society by empowering the locality clubs as had been adopted by previous CPM rulers.

The BJP attacked Mamata on the issue of political killings in the state. Refuting the allegations, she, in a political rally organised against the controversial farm bills, cited the National Crime Bureau records, to claim that her state had better law and order than BJP-ruled ones like Uttar Pradesh, and the previous avatar of Bengal under the Left Front regimes (2001-2011).

The idea of dokhol (capture) and purna-dokhol (complete hold) has always played a significant role in Bengal politics.

Even the BJP realises that unless the TMC’s hold over party-society is broken, it will be difficult to capture political power in the state.

Therefore the issues of law and order and the culture of political violence are fundamental in West Bengal.

As far as riots are concerned in Mamata rule, the opposition picked up the incidents to relate them with communal violence but most of them went unreported in local media and the national media also could not pursue further due to lack of evidence.

It is worth asking, whether the CM Mamata and her party Trinamool Congress have anything to lose (with these episodes of violence) in the upcoming elections. 

It will be a big challenge to Bengali bhadralok culture in comparison to non-bhadralok Hindutvavadi RSS-backed Manuvadi, casteist, conservative BJP party. It is a big question whether the Bengali identity will prevail if BJP comes to power. A Bengali by temperament grows up in the environment of rich secular ideologies of equality, progressive social reformers, renowned thinkers, writers, poets, freedom fighters, revolutionaries, martyrs, scientists, artists, theatre personalities, film makers, economists and intellectuals like  Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Khudiram Bose, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Bagha Jatin, Ajitesh Bandopadhyay, Ritwik Ghatak, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Amartya Sen etc to name only a few of them. Time has come for the Bengalis to think seriously if their identity of secular bhadralok will prevail or they will succumb to a non-bhadralok organization with distorted mindset promoting hate, racism and bigotry. 

Now it has to be seen in the 2021 Assembly election as to which side the traditional left voters will shift - whether to TMC upholding the Bengali pride or to BJP propagating the Nationalistic Hindu narrative. Will the left switch to right or stick to left itself. It is also true many left leaders joined BJP as reaction towards Mamata in election 2021 in Bengal. From North Bengal Manoj Kumar Oraon of Kumargram, Alipurduar contested on Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) ticket in 2016 but now he will contest on BJP ticket. Khagen Murmu a BJP MP from Malda Uttar had earlier served for four terms as a CPM MLA from Habibpur constituency from 2006 to 2019. Strategic shift in lower cadre of the left front to BJP is visible and it seems this will continue as I said to show their reactions towards Mamata. 

At the same time Mamata has strong opponents of old and traditional Left voters who remained denied of many of the government's schemes of direct beneficiary transfers.

Here I will end with a very significant statement of the Left leader and famous Tollygunge actor Badshah Miotra who is humble enough to agree that the Left will not come to power this time and it is "better Mamata to go and let BJP come to power as it will be easier to take on BJP on issues still not conducive to Bangali heritage, tradition and temperament as BJP will enter in West Bengal with different set of culture." The Left also wants to get rid of old guards by encouraging new young faces who have been allotted tickets to contest in the 2021 Bengal Assembly election. It can also be viewed as a good try by the Left for developing a second line of cadre although the Left is not going to wrest power in Bengal this election. If BJP is temperamentally optimistic to have an edge over Mamata in this election, it is also there in their mind that they might confront the Left in the next election.