Adjustment And Other Tricks That BJP In Bengal Can Learn From Assam To Capture Power

The spectacular victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Assam holds out many lessons for the party in West Bengal. The primary lesson among them is the need to correct public perception about the party. The BJP in Bengal is perceived to be a party of caste Hindus advocating only Hindutva. It is seen as a party of non-Bengali traders and businessmen, primarily Marwaris and Gujaratis. This image problem that the party suffers from has severely stymied the growth of the BJP.

In Assam, the BJP successfully portrayed Sarbananda Sonowal, a Sonowal Kachari (an indigenous tribe of Assam), as the face of the party. Sonowal has a clean image and is a sober, genteel and able person. He is also very charismatic. What also helped the BJP in Assam was its catchy slogan--jaati, mati, bheti (identity, land and base).

But in West Bengal, the BJP is yet to find a charismatic leader. State unit chief Dilip Ghosh may have won the recently held Assembly polls and become a legislator, but is a little known face in the state, and lacks charisma. His intemperate utterances, which many mistake for tough-talk, have not really endeared him to the Bengali ‘bhadralok’ class.

The BJP has to find someone like Satyabrata Mookherjee, who was a Lok Sabha MP and a junior minister in the Vajpayee government. Mukherjee, a senior lawyer who was also the Additional Solicitor General of India, is articulate, and a quintessential bhadralok with a squeaky clean image. He found ready acceptance among many. He has been the state unit chief.

Perhaps, his age permitting, Mookherjee can be reinstated or be given a more prominent role in the party. If not, it has to find a younger version of Mukherjee. Roopa Ganguly, as has been written many times by many commentators, also holds a lot of promise.

The BJP in Bengal also has to shed its image as a party of non-Bengali traders. For this to happen, the party has to induct more Bengalis, especially prominent and charismatic Bengalis. During their visits to Bengal, the party’s central leaders are always seen with non-Bengali traders and supporters of Kolkata. Even the press conferences they address have only a token Bengali presence.

They must be seen, and photographed, in the company of prominent Bengalis if the image of the BJP in Bengal is to undergo a change. In Assam too, non-Assamese traders and businessmen have formed the core support base, and financiers, of the BJP. But they have remained in the background and Assamese leaders like Sonowal, Himanta Biswa Sarma and Siddharth Bhattacharyya (the former chief of the state unit of the party) are the public face of the party.

The BJP also succeeded in Assam because of the lateral inductions of charismatic leaders from other parties in recent years. Sonowal is a prime example of this; he was the president of the influential All Assam Students’ Union and then joined the Asom Gana Parishad. He was inducted into the BJP only in February 2011. One of the architects of the BJP’s victory in Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, was also in the AASU and later senior Congress minister. He joined the BJP only in August 2015. There are many other leaders and workers in the BJP’s Assam unit who have inducted from other parties. This shows that the party shed its reluctance to take in and promote politicians from other parties.

The BJP in West Bengal is yet to show such open-heartedness. It has made no attempt to woo clean, charismatic and effective politicians from other parties. There are many leaders who have been sidelined or feel neglected in the Trinamool Congress and the Congress and it would be wise for the BJP in Bengal to work on them.

Mamata Banerjee’s temperamental nature, her whimsical ways, ill-treatment of party colleagues, intolerance of contrarian views and her dictatorial style of functioning have made many in the Trinamool Congress, especially in that party’s second and third rungs, very unhappy.  Mamata is surrounded by a cabal of self-serving and corrupt leaders who will not allow new talents to blossom in the party.

There are many within that party who are disgusted with the corruption and nepotism of the senior Trinamool leaders and Mamata’s misgovernance. Even some of the ‘íntellectuals’ who had supported Mamata in the past have distanced themselves from the lady and her party. The BJP needs to win these people over; many among them would be more than willing to join the BJP if they’re assured due respect and dignity.

In Assam, the BJP very successfully tapped into the latent fear among the indigenous communities of being swamped by illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The Congress was portrayed as the villain, which was responsible for facilitating this influx and playing vote-bank politics. The BJP also created a wave for ‘paribartan’(change) in Assam just as Mamata had against the Left Front in 2011. The BJP in Assam also managed to convince the indigenous Muslims of the state that they had nothing to fear from the party; this is evident from BJP wins in many constituencies that have a sizeable segment of indigenous Muslim population.

Bengal faces the same problem of the presence of lakhs of Bangladeshis who have infiltrated through the porous borders and settled in the state over many decades. The Left regime, and then the Trinamool over the last five years, has not only turned a blind eye to this influx, but also actively encouraged it for political gains.

The infiltrators outnumber the indigenous population of Bengal, Hindus as well as Muslims, in many constituencies especially in the border districts. The indigenous people of Bengal are very resentful of this, but find no political party to take up this burning issue in a forceful manner.

The BJP in Bengal has to convince the indigenous Muslims that it means them no harm and, at the same time, make the issue of presence of Bangladeshis in West Bengal a major issue by the next elections in 2021. It has five years to do this; five years is enough to generate mass awareness about the dangers posed by the presence of lakhs of foreigners on the state’s soil.

In Assam, the BJP functioned as a cohesive whole. The Bengal unit of the BJP is quite a divided house. The Central leaders of the party have to ensure that the state leaders sink their differences and the indisciplined lot are dealt with strictly. This is necessary if the BJP is to ensure that it is a credible claimant for power in Bengal. The Bengal unit of the BJP also has to launch massive campaigns all over the state against Mamata’s misgovernance and the various acts of corruption and wrongdoing by her colleagues.

The state unit leaders ought to be encouraged to take up such issues and not to be shy of going all-out against Mamata as in the recent past. The central leadership of the BJP has to look beyond the immediate gains of getting Trinamool support to pass bills in the Rajya Sabha and concentrate on building the party in Bengal.

And lastly, the BJP in Bengal should look at forming alliances with smaller parties just as the BJP had done in Assam. There can’t be an alliance with the Left parties or the Congress, of course. But there are many small parties that would be happy to be part of an alliance led by the BJP to take on the Trinamool.

The BJP’s alliance with the Gorkha Janamukti Mancha in Darjeeling paid rich dividends. It can also ally with the Kamtapur People’s Party (of the Koch-Rajbongshis who, incidentally, voted for the BJP in large numbers in Assam), small parties representing the Adivasis, the tea tribes and other marginalized groups to form a rainbow alliance.

The Trinamool Congress’ spectacular success in the Assembly polls was due in no small measure to the lack of a viable political alternative in Bengal. Many voted for the Trinamool since there was no one else they could vote for--the Left-Congress ‘jote’ (alliance) was seen as an unprincipled, opportunistic and self-serving alliance without any agenda, and the BJP not a serious contender for power. The BJP leaders, both in Kolkata and New Delhi, would do well to take cognisance of this.