With Dhankar's Nomination After Himanta-Mamata Meet, Speculations Of Larger 'Deal' With TMC Grow; Opacity Over Meet Not Helping BJP

It is now obvious that the two-hour-long tripartite meeting between Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankar, state chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was not a casual adda over a cup of tea as was made out to be.

The agenda, as is clear now, of last week’s meeting at the Raj Bhawan in Darjeeling was the NDA’s plan to nominate Dhankar as its candidate for the post of Vice President. The Assam chief minister, who enjoys a close rapport with Union Home Minister Amit Shah, had gone to the hill station as an emissary of the BJP central leadership.

The BJP wanted, for some inexplicable reason, to take its arch political enemy in Bengal--Mamata Banerjee--into confidence before it announced Dhankar’s name as its Vice Presidential candidate.

The Bengal chief minister, who had crossed swords with Dhankar many times and even had sharp exchanges with the latter, seems to have endorsed Dhankar’s candidature.

According to this report, the Trinamool leader in the Lok Sabha, Sudip Bandopadhyay, has indicated that the party will skip a meeting of Opposition parties convened by senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge to discuss names for the Opposition’s choice for the Vice President’s post.

It is completely uncharacteristic for Mamata Banerjee to be so circumspect and maintain a silence on important political developments, especially when it concerns the BJP.

That she has not said anything about Dhankar’s imminent ascension to the Vice President’s post--her spokespersons have announced she will speak on the subject only on or after July 21--only means she knew about the BJP’s choice in advance and had agreed to it.

In the normal course of things, she would have criticised the BJP’s choice of Dhankar for the VP’s post and opposed it. Her silence till now is pregnant with meaning, and profound political implications.

Banerjee would not have agreed to endorse, and maybe even support, Dhankar’s candidature without getting anything in return. So the million dollar question, and one that is agitating the minds of leaders and functionaries of the BJP in Bengal, is: what’s the ‘deal’ between the BJP and Mamata Banerjee?

According to some quarters, Mamata Banerjee agreed to endorse Dhankar’s candidature in return for getting a new Governor (for Bengal) of her choice.

Usually, the chief minister of a state is consulted, or kept in the loop, by the Union government when it comes to appointing a Governor of that particular state. But when Dhankar was appointed as the Bengal Governor in May 2019, Banerjee was not consulted or even informed well in advance.

She had expressed her displeasure over the appointment of Dhankar as the Bengal Governor as soon as the Union Government made the announcement, and that had set the stage for the unending and often ugly spats between the Raj Bhawan and the state government.

According to some Trinamool and BJP leaders, former Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi may be named as Dhankar’s replacement and Banerjee has agreed to his name.

Naqvi is measured, soft-spoken, non-controversial and low-key, unlike Dhankar who was outspoken, combative and critical of the Bengal government.

Naqvi, thus, is a much more agreeable persona as the Bengal Governor to Mamata Banerjee than Dhankar. But all the talk of Naqvi moving into the Raj Bhavan in Kolkata is only speculation right now.

It will become clear very soon, once the name of Dhankar’s successor is announced, if appointing a person of Mamata Banerjee’s choice as Bengal governor is part of the ‘deal’ that the BJP struck with her.

The ‘deal’, of course, would not be limited to the choice of candidates for the Vice President’s and the Bengal Governor’s posts, it could be much more than that.

And, more important, what was the compulsion to strike a deal with Mamata Banerjee? The BJP has enough MPs in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha to get its candidate elected to the VP’s post. It did not need the endorsement and support of any other party, least of all Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool which has caused immense grief to the saffron party in the state.

The compulsion, or the rationale, for the BJP-Mamata deal could not thus have been only over the next Vice President and state Governor.

Some political analysts are of the view that the deal--definitely a reciprocal one--is probably over the next Lok Sabha elections.

“The BJP has reached a near saturation point in Northern and Western India as far as Lok Sabha seats are concerned. It has won a large majority of the seats in the lower House from states in those two regions and the scope of bagging more seats from those states is limited. So it needs to expand to the South and also retain, if not increase, its 2019 tally (the BJP won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats) in order to post another huge victory in 2024,” said political analyst Ranabir Roychoudhury.

However, said Roychoudhury, the BJP is in no position to win more than three to four seats--and that too is an optimistic assessment--from Bengal on its own in 2024.

That’s because it has become weak organisationally; wracked by infighting, desertions from its ranks and disillusionment among its workers, most of whom have dissociated themselves from the party.

But bagging a good number of seats from Bengal is crucial for the party’s goal of positing another huge victory in 2024. A ‘huge victory’ would serve as a ringing endorsement from the nation of Prime Minister Modi and his policies.

Since winning a good number of seats from Bengal is critical, and the BJP cannot achieve this on its own, it needs help from Mamata Banerjee, reasons Roychoudhury.

There are many ways in which Mamata Banerjee can help the BJP win a good number of seats in Bengal: by fielding weak candidates against BJP nominees, by fielding dummy candidates to divide the anti-BJP votes, by asking her other cadres to go soft on the BJP and thus desist from creating a climate of fear that deters BJP supporters from voting, by not campaigning actively against the BJP and by some other subtle and not-so-subtle methods.

“The BJP-Mamata ‘deal’ is perhaps one where the BJP has been assured of getting a good number of Lok Sabha seats from Bengal and in return, the BJP will not disturb Mamata Banerjee in Bengal. And that the Union Government will be liberal in releasing funds to the state without much oversight, and also get central investigative agencies like the CBI and ED to go slow on their probes against Trinamool leaders,” said Roychoudhury.

It is the buzz about such a ‘deal’ that has agitated BJP leaders and functionaries in Bengal. And such a ‘deal’, if true, also bodes very ill for the saffron party in the state.

A ‘deal’ of this nature will cost the BJP whatever credibility and goodwill it still enjoys in Bengal. It will lead to more desertion from its ranks and will cause an irreversible and complete demoralisation of its cadres.

Also, Mamata Banerjee has always proven to be an untrustworthy ally or partner. She had struck deals with the BJP and the Congress in the past, and had been an ally of both these parties.

But she has used her allies, friends and partners to her own benefit and has had no compunctions in ditching them when it suited her interests and once she had extracted all benefits from them. She had never kept her part of bargains in the past, and there is no reason to believe that she will do so now.

But, then, everything about the BJP-Mamata ‘deal’ is a lot of speculation. However, what is definitely beyond the realm of conjecture is that a ‘deal’ between the BJP and Mamata Banerjee was struck at the Raj Bhavan in Darjeeling last week.

As long as the meeting remains shrouded in secrecy, a lot of speculation will swirl around it. And all that speculation is also not conducive to the well-being of the already embattled and severely weakened BJP unit in Bengal.

Also read: Himanta-Mamata meet in Darjeeling triggers buzz; many in Bengal BJP dismayed