BJP’s Rout In Kolkata Civic Polls Signals Urgent Need To Cleanse State Unit And Undertake Major Course Correction

The humiliation that the BJP in Bengal has heaped onto itself, as was evident from its performance at the just-concluded polls to Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), is hardly surprising.

BJP won just three of the 144 seats in the KMC, and its candidates lost their deposits in 116 seats. What is more, the Left has taken the runner-up position (in terms of vote share) and relegated the BJP to third.

While Left Front (LF) candidates came second in 65 wards, BJP candidates came second in only 48 wards while the Congress, which barely retains any presence in Bengal, came second in 16 wards.

In terms of vote share, the Left Front bagged 11.13 per cent of the votes cast while the BJP could get only 8.94 per cent and the Congress got 4.47 per cent. The Trinamool’s vote share was 71.95 per cent, an increase of 22 per cent as compared to its performance in the 2015 KMC polls when it won in 114 wards (it won 134 this time).

The BJP had won seven seats in the 2015 KMC polls and its vote share was a little over 16 per cent that time. While the BJP’s vote share fell, the LF seems to have succeeded in preventing an erosion of its support base; its vote share fell marginally by less than two percent as compared to its 2015 performance.

The sharp decline of popular support for the BJP can be fathomed if the party’s performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and even the Assembly elections held earlier this year is considered.

The BJP got a good lead in as many as 50 wards (of the KMC’s 144 wards) in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls while the Trinamool got a lead in 90 wards and the LF and Congress in three each.

If the BJP were to even repeat that performance now, it would have won in more than one-third of the 144 seats. But the saffron party’s performance in Kolkata (areas under the KMC’s jurisdiction) decreased substantially in the Assembly elections held earlier this year, thus providing an indication of the tragedy that lay ahead for it.

The BJP got a lead in only ten wards in Kolkata while the Trinamool got a lead in 133 wards. The Congress got a lead in only one ward.

Seven months down the line, the BJP’s political space in the city has shrunk to a mere three wards. A ward-wide analysis of the results reveals that a majority of the votes bagged by the BJP in the 2021 Assembly elections have now gone to the Trinamool.

The BJP has accused the Trinamool of rigging the polls. There have, admittedly, been incidents of BJP candidates and polling agents being assaulted, polling booths being ‘captured’ by Trinamool goons to cast false votes, bombs being hurled and voters being intimidated.

But going by Bengal’s notorious legacy of poll violence and rigging by the ruling party, the KMC election this time has been a largely placid affair.

There are few takers for the BJP’s allegations of ‘widespread rigging’ and it would be self-defeating for the party to hide behind this fig leaf to explain its performance.

While it remains a fact that the BJP has never been strong in southern Bengal, especially Kolkata, the party’s encouraging performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls where it got leads in more than one-third of the KMC’s 144 wards cannot be overlooked.

There were enough indications that the BJP would fare poorly. In most of the wards, the party’s organisational base has ceased to exist. BJP candidates could not get more than a handful of party workers to canvass for them in the run up to the civic polls.

Party workers were also angry over tickets being given to defectors from other parties--a factor that cost the BJP very dearly in the Assembly polls earlier this year and from which the state party leadership seems to have learnt no lessons.

The poor choice of candidates in many wards kept BJP workers and supporters from working for these candidates and even voting against the BJP.

More than half of the names in the BJP’s list of ‘star campaigners’ failed to turn up and the party’s poll campaign was lacklustre.

It is no surprise that the BJP has barely any organisation worth the name in Kolkata. The violence unleashed on BJP workers and supporters after the Assembly elections seven months ago led most of these embattled BJP workers and supporters to disassociate themselves from the party.

But what caused a major erosion in the BJP’s organisational strength was the refusal, or inability, of state party leaders to stand by the besieged workers. The silence of the party’s central leadership to even condemn the post-poll violence and hold the Trinamool to account led to long-time party workers and supporters turning against the BJP.

The common refrain among BJP workers and supporters in Kolkata, and other parts of the state as well, is that a party that does not stand by its workers does not deserve the support of the workers.

Added to this are the strong rumours of the BJP’s central leadership having entered into some kind of a ‘deal’ with Mamata Banerjee to decimate the Congress in other states, most notably Goa where the Trinamool is trying to make its presence felt in a major way.

The inaction of the BJP leadership--both state and central--in standing in solidarity with embattled party workers after the Assembly polls, the rumours about an ‘understanding’ between BJP leaders and Mamata Banerjee, poor and flawed choice of candidates for the KMC elections and the general disinterest displayed by the state party leadership has led to a calamitous decline in the BJP’s support base not only in Kolkata, but across most other parts of the state.

This erosion of its support base will only continue if the party central leadership does not intervene and set matters right immediately. If the drift is allowed to continue, there is no way that the BJP will win more than just two or three seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Bengal.

The BJP central leadership needs to immediately disband the state unit of the party and appoint a fresh set of central prabharis who will thoroughly overhaul the party in the state.

A huge number of workers and supporters have drifted away from the BJP because of the uninspiring state leadership who limit themselves to issuing statements to the media. The party needs to enthuse its workers at the grassroots and inspire them to take on the Trinamool very aggressively.

For that to happen, the party’s central leadership has to convince workers and supporters that it will not only stand by them in their hour of need, but also put Mamata Banerjee on the dock if attack on BJP workers continue.

The Prime Minister and the Home Minister have to send an unequivocal message to BJP workers in Bengal that they will not tolerate a single attack on party workers and will take strong action against Mamata Banerjee if that happens. They have to make it amply clear that political violence is unacceptable and Mamata Banerjee will have to pay a heavy price for it.

Simultaneously, in order to dispel the rumours about an ‘understanding’ with Mamata Banerjee, the BJP has to up the ante against her and display its strong resolve not to concede an inch of political space to the Trinamool in Goa or the rest of the country. The BJP should get aggressive against the Trinamool in Goa just as it had done in Tripura.

The need for cleansing the Bengal unit of the BJP is urgent. In the eyes of the party workers, many state leaders have ‘compromised’ themselves and thus do not command any respect. These leaders should be removed immediately and people who have fire in their belly and the resolve to fight the Trinamool should be given a free hand.

If the BJP central leadership does not act now, it will come to regret the inevitable repeat of the party’s latest poll performance (in Kolkata) across the state a little over two years from now.