The Nine Steps BJP Should Take To Regain Lost Ground And Emerge As Viable Alternative To Trinamool In Bengal

The BJP’s political stock in Bengal is declining every day, and more so with even senior leaders running down each other and working at cross-purposes. Beset by deep factionalism, debilitating desertion from its ranks and complete listlessness, the saffron party in Bengal has lost the plot completely.

Buoyed by its spectacular success in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when it won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the BJP started harbouring hopes of dislodging the Trinamool from power in 2021. But it not only got its basics wrong and committed a lot of strategic blunders, it failed miserably to get its finger on Bengal’s political pulse and read the Bengali psyche correctly.

As a result, the BJP fell far short of its ambitious target of bagging 200 of the Assembly’s 294 seats in the 2021 state polls. But even though the saffron party failed to come to power in Bengal, its poll performance was not bad at all. As compared to the three seats it bagged in 2016, the party won 77 seats last year.

That in itself should have kept its spirits alive and spurred the party to gear up to fight the battle another day. Bagging more than 25 per cent of the seats in the Assembly and a 38.13 percent vote share (10.16 per cent in 2016), and relegating the other opposition parties (the communists and the Congress) to the margins (the two failed to win even a single seat), is a creditable performance by any standard.

To put things in perspective, Mamata Banerjee also created a hype before the 2006 Assembly polls that she would defeat the CPI(M)-led Left Front. But that fell flat on its face and her party tagged only 30 seats. However, she did not allow the poor poll performance to dishearten her cadres and bounced back very soon to lead her party to a victory five years later.

The BJP’s state and central leadership ought to have, similarly, boosted the morale of their workers and convinced them that though the battle was lost, the war was theirs to win. Instead, the saffron party’s leadership went into a shell, failed to stand by the party’s beleaguered cadres and protect them from horrific atrocities, and drove the party into a tailspin in Bengal.

After one whole year of infighting, factionalism and desertions, the party is now banking on its central leadership to arrest its decline in Bengal and chart out a roadmap for regaining the momentum it had built up before the Assembly polls last year. But the task is a herculean one, especially since the party’s central leadership is itself to blame in a substantial measure for the mess that the Bengal BJP finds itself in now.

Nonetheless, here are some urgent and essential steps that the party should take to rejuvenate itself and emerge as a serious contender for power four years down the line:

1. Choose a chief ministerial face and project the person as the undisputed leader of the party in the state:

The lack of a chief ministerial face harmed the BJP’s electoral prospects last year and continues to be a prime reason for the continuing decline of the party in the state. It is high time the party projects one person as the undisputed leader of the party in Bengal who will replace Mamata Banerjee as chief minister in 2026.

Suvendu Adhikari fits the bill perfectly: he is an astute and experienced politician who understands Bengal, has an appeal across the state, is known for his organisational skills, is a good orator and possesses the requisite leadership qualities. Adhikari also finds wide acceptance among party workers and is looked upon as a courageous leader who has the guts to take on the Trinamool and Mamata Banerjee.

It is imperative that the BJP central leadership backs Adhikari, or whosoever it chooses to project as the party’s chief ministerial candidate, to the hilt. All other leaders, functionaries and workers have to be asked to fall in line and work under the chosen person.

There has to be zero tolerance for factionalism, infighting, back-biting and petty quarrels.

2. Discipline errant partymen:

There are too many leaders, most of them with massive egos, who are sabotaging the party’s political prospects in Bengal. The propensity of these leaders to issue statements and indulge in shadow-boxing through the media, including social media, is damaging the party immensely. One of the primary culprits here is the party’s national vice-president (and the former state party president) Dilip Ghosh.

Ghosh is yet to reconcile himself with the fact that he has been removed from the state party chief’s post. He ought to be told that his statements and conduct are harming the party and that he should keep his nose out of Bengal unit’s affairs.

If such leaders keep on playing truant, they should be punished so as to serve as an example to others.

At the same time, many party leaders in Bengal have some genuine grievances and complaints, and those need to be addressed sympathetically.

But overall, the party central leadership should send out a clear message to everyone to bury their differences and work unitedly for the party. And to stop airing their differences in public.

3. Boost morale of party cadres:

Thanks to the party leadership’s failure to stand by, protect and provide succour to party workers who faced attacks by goons let loose on them by Trinamool leaders, a huge lot of workers have either switched over to the Trinamool to save their lives or have dissociated themselves from the BJP.

In case of future attacks on BJP workers--and such attacks are bound to happen--the party leadership should not only stand by the workers, but strong action should be taken by the Union Government against the state government.

New Delhi has enough powers to punish and discourage political violence--short of imposing President’s Rule that will only serve to make Mamata Banerjee emerge stronger by painting herself as a martyr--and it should exercise those powers resolutely. The BJP central leadership should also make it clear to the Trinamool leadership that the cost of attacking BJP workers in Bengal will be very high.

4. Appoint an ‘appropriate’ central minder:

The BJP central leadership needs to appoint an in-charge of Bengal who has to devote his full time and attention to party affairs in the state. Such a person should be discreet and should not, unlike the earlier minders, hog the limelight. He should work silently behind the scenes and provide the state leadership with all the help that is required. And such a minder should desist from playing favourites that will only encourage factionalism.

5. Launch movements to highlight the many failures of Mamata Banerjee government

The failures of the Mamata Banerjee government are simply too many to be listed here. But unfortunately, the BJP in Bengal has failed to highlight those failures and the glaring shortcomings in governance.

The state unit of the BJP should launch strong, cadre-based movements against the corruption, misgovernance and many failings of the Trinamool government and build up the party through such movements

6. Overhaul party in Bengal:

There is an urgent need to thoroughly overhaul the party unit in the state. Only those leaders and workers who are committed, willing to make sacrifices and can rise above their petty self interests to work for the party should be rewarded and all the quarrelsome, ineffective and effete, corrupt and self-seeking functionaries should be divested of their posts and also dismissed from the party if they fail to reform. The BJP in Bengal desperately needs committed, courageous and selfless leaders.

7. Concentrate on organic growth:

A major error that the BJP committed was to indiscriminately induct Trinamool dissidents en masse without any checks. Many of these dissidents, who turned out to be Trojan horses, were given plum posts and a lot of importance while old-timers and committed party workers and functionaries were ignored. The ignored old-timers distanced themselves from the BJP in the run-up to the Assembly elections, and that marred the party’s prospects last year.

The BJP now has to concentrate on building up the party from the grassroots. In the process, it can identify talent that should be promoted. An organic growth is what the party needs, and only such a growth will stand the BJP in good stead.

8. Discard overt Hindutva

Aggressive Hindutva, exemplified by combative Jai Shree Ram slogans, does not have a lot of takers in Bengal. Images of saffron-cap and scarves clad young men raising that slogan while accompanying party candidates during the campaign for the last Assembly polls damaged the party’s prospects, especially in south Bengal and amongst the Bengali bhadraloks.

That brand of aggressive Hindutva which works in north and west India will not work in Bengal. The BJP has to realise this and tailor its outreach programmes accordingly. Aggressive Hindutva alienates many in Bengal. That said, aggressive Hindutva will strike a chord in some parts of Bengal too, especially in the districts bordering Bangladesh where Hindus have been suffering the onslaught of Bangladesh-origin Muslims.

The BJP has to fine-tune an effective strategy of hard-selling and soft-pedalling Hindutva according to the profiles and needs of specific areas.

9. Build a favourable ecosystem:

Almost the entire local media, and large sections of academia and influential civil society, as well as professionals and the Bengali bhadralok harbour an aversion to the BJP. That aversion is, however, based on misinformation and an effective anti-BJP campaign carried out by other parties.

The BJP in Bengal needs to reach out to civil society and explain its stand on various issues, and also highlight the many sterling development initiatives of the Modi government at the federal level. The BJP in Bengal needs effective communicators and respectable persons who can strike a rapport with the bhadraloks, academia and professionals. It needs erudite, soft-spoken, genteel functionaries who ought to be tasked with creating a favourable ecosystem for the party in Bengal.

These are but some major steps that the party needs to take. But most importantly, the central leadership needs to convey its firm intent of taking the Trinamool bull by its horns and unseating Mamata Banerjee from power in 2026.

To the beleaguered party worker and the masses of Bengal, that intent is suspect as of now. The BJP central leadership needs to correct that impression through some resolute actions.