BJP’s Poor Performance In Bengal Civic Polls Holds No Surprises; More Ominous Times Lurk Ahead

The BJP’s steady downslide in Bengal can worsen into a freefall if the results of the just-concluded elections to four major civic bodies in the state is anything to go by.

The saffron party, which had made loud claims till just nine months ago that it would unseat Mamata Banerjee from power in Bengal, drew a blank in two of the four civic bodies and lost a lot of ground in Siliguri where it had performed well in the last Assembly polls.

What should be very worrying for the BJP is that it lagged much behind the Left Front in two of the four municipalities. The Trinamool’s gains in Siliguri, the nerve centre of BJP’s North Bengal bastion, should also be of major concern for the saffron party.

The BJP had got a lead in 24 of Siliguri’s 47 wards in last year’s Assembly polls. The party’s candidate, Shankar Ghosh, had won the Siliguri Assembly seat by a handsome margin of over 35,000 votes and polled over 50 per cent percent. In contrast, the Trinamool candidate polled 30 percent votes last year.

The Siliguri Assembly seat comprises 33 of the city’s 47 wards, and the BJP had trounced the Trinamool in most of these wards last year. But just nine months later, the BJP could retain only five wards this time.

Former North Bengal Development minister Goutam Deb (of the Trinamool) who lost to the BJP last year by nearly 28,000 votes in the Dabgram-Phulbari Assembly, which comprises 14 wards in Siliguri city, won from one ward (number 33) this time. He has been named the Siliguri Mayor.

Significantly, Siliguri MLA Shankar Ghosh (BJP) lost from the ward he had contested this time. Marxist strongman Ashok Bhattacharya, who won the Siliguri Assembly seat five times in the past and was a senior minister in successive Left Front governments, also lost this time.

This is the first time that the Trinamool won the Siliguri Municipal polls. In the last municipal polls in 2014, the party had bagged 17 wards, 20 less than what it won this time. The Trinamool also polled 47.2 percent votes while the BJP, whose vote share stood at 23.2 percent this time, bagged five wards.

While the biggest loser in Siliguri is the Left, which won in 23 wards in 2015 when civic polls were last held, the Trinamool win there is cause for major concern for the BJP. That’s because Siliguri is the largest urban centre in North Bengal, and the Trinamool is set to launch its frontal assault on the BJP’s North Bengal stronghold from that city.

What should also deeply worry the saffron party is that the Trinamool won five of the six wards in Siliguri that have a strong Gorkha presence. The Gorkhas, who dominate the Darjeeling Hills, had been virulently opposed to Mamata Banerjee and her party, and have been staunch BJP supporters.

The Trinamool’s win in the five wards where Gorkhas play a decisive role shows that the community is slowly turning towards the Trinamool. That can only have severe consequences for the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

It was primarily the BJP’s stellar performance in North Bengal in 2019 that contributed largely to the party doing well in the polls that year by bagging 18 of Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP won all the six Lok Sabha seats--Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, Raiganj and Balurghat--in North Bengal. The Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat encompasses Siliguri city.

The Trinamool started clawing back in North Bengal from last year, as was evident in the results of the 2021 Assembly polls. Of the 42 Assembly seats in the seven North Bengal districts of Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Kalimpong, Darjeeling, Uttar Dinajpur and Dakshin Dinajpur, the BJP managed to retain 26, including the Siliguri seat.

The victory in the Siliguri civic polls will only serve to energise its cadres and drive the Trinamool to decimate the saffron party in North Bengal.

What should also be of great concern for the BJP is the increase in the Left’s vote share in three of the four municipalities where polls were held last weekend. In Asansol, for instance, the BJP was ahead of the Left in 66 wards in the 2021 Assembly elections. But this time, the BJP slipped behind the Left in 13 of those wards.

The BJP has won the Asansol Lok Sabha seat in 2014 and 2019. But its MP, Babul Supriyo, left the party and joined the Trinamool in September last year after losing his portfolio in the reshuffle of the Union council of ministers. That affected the party’s performance in the just-concluded civic polls.

Asansol is the second largest city in Bengal with 106 municipal wards spread over two Assembly constituencies of Asansol Uttar and Asansol Dakshin. Fashion designer Agnimitra Paul, the president of the BJP Mahila Morcha, wrested the Asansol Dakshin Assembly seat from the Trinamool in 2021 while Moloy Ghatak, the current law minister, won the Asansol Uttar seat for the third consecutive time last year.

Considering the BJP’s creditable performance in Asansol in last year’s Assembly polls, the party’s performance this time--it won just seven of the 106 wards and its vote share plummeted to just 17 percent--can be termed as nothing but dismal. The civic poll results also show that the BJP has lost a lot of ground in that industrial city and stands little chance of retaining the Asansol Lok Sabha seat in 2024.

The BJP drew a blank in Kolkata’s exurb--Bidhannagar--and polled just 8.3 percent of the votes, lower than the Left’s 10.7 percent vote share. Middle class and upper middle class voters make up for a large segment of the electorate of Bidhannagar (also called Salt Lake), and the BJP coming a cropper there shows that the saffron party is yet to make inroads into this section of Bengal’s populace in Bengal.

What’s more, non-Bengalis also constitute a significant section of the voters of Bidhannagar and the failure of the saffron party to get their support also holds very ominous portends for the party.

In the Chandannagar municipality, the BJP bagged one ward when elections were last held in 2015, and posted encouraging performance in six other wards where it came a close second to the Trinamool. But this time, it not only drew a blank but was relegated to the third position by the Left in all the wards.

The reasons for the BJP’s miserable performance are not far to seek. Most BJP workers have either deserted or dissociated themselves from the party after the leadership failed to stand by them after the last Assembly elections when they faced horrific attacks by Trinamool goons. The attacks by the Trinamool, and the abject and shameful failure of the party leadership to stand by and protect the workers demoralised not only the workers, but also supporters of the saffron party.

The BJP was also hit by desertions from its senior ranks. Most of those who were brought into the party from the Trinamool before the Assembly elections returned to their old party. In many cases, the defectors from the Trinamool upstaged party veterans who are still angry with the party leadership’s folly in inducting turncoats.

The saffron party is also reeling from severe differences among its state leaders. Most senior leaders do not see eye to eye and petty squabbles among them have become commonplace. The BJP, which had emerged as a serious challenger to the Trinamool, has lost credibility.

A large section of the anti-Trinamool vote, which had migrated from the Left and the Congress to the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha and 2021 Assembly polls, have started returning to the Left. And that will prove devastating for the BJP.

Last weekend’s elections to the four municipalities in Bengal were the curtain-raiser to the polls to 108 civic bodies in the state scheduled for February 27. The results of that election, say political analysts, will deal another body blow to the BJP.