Kolkata: As race heats up for West Bengal assembly elections, the clash between the Mamata Banerjee-led government and the BJP-ruled Centre is getting murkier. Now, the coronavirus pandemic has added up to the duel. While TMC maintains that the central government is doing politics over Covid-19, New Delhi has accused Bengal of hindering work undertaken by it to avoid spread of the virus.
On April 29, Banerjee accused the BJP of playing politics over novel coronavirus outbreak by highlighting a few incidents of law and order and asked the BJP why, despite less number of virus cases, Centre had ‘first’ decided to send IMCT teams to West Bengal and not Gujarat and other BJP-ruled states.
She also questioned why the BJP leaders were mum over faulty testing kits, incidents of riots in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi over coronavirus and during CAA protests.
“It’s not election time. Do politics later. In this time of pandemic, it is unfortunate that BJP is doing politics. I would like to tell them to be ‘social’ and not ‘unsocial’. Let’s fight this pandemic together,” Mamata had said.
TMC also expressed concern over the role of Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and even alleged Raj Bhavan has become a BJP party office.
On the other hand, the BJP leaders waged a social media war against the Bengal government by accusing the state of hiding Covid-19 figures and also complaining the Centre that TMC-led government in Bengal has completely failed in handling the coronavirus crisis. They also highlighted the alleged ration scam during this ongoing lockdown through digital press conferences and requested the governor to intervene in to the matter.
Last but not the least, the standoff between the BJP and TMC was followed by endless letters coupled with series of communiqué from the IMCT, Union Home Secretary and the governor, accusing the state of ‘poor supervision of administration’ in this situation of global pandemic.
The situation turned bitter when Mamata, while terming the governor's communiqué as 'letter missiles' accused him of trying to 'usurp powers' amid the coronavirus crisis, and asked him to desist from using official communications and logos on social media.
"I beseech you to desist from intensifying your efforts to usurp powers, especially during the humongous crisis which the nation and West Bengal is grappling with. Please do not dream of a ‘Dyarchy’ in the state," the chief minister had said.
Speaking to News18, Trinamool Congress MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy said, “It is beyond any doubt that the BJP is playing politics using various constitutional forces. With less than a year left for the assembly poll preparedness in Bengal and keeping in mind that BJP is on the back foot over citizenship issue, they are using Covid-19 as their political weapon in Bengal to make political ground. This is highly condemnable.”
“It is a concerted assault on the West Bengal government by the BJP government at the Centre. I would like to question them, why the IMCT teams were first sent to opposition-ruled states and not to Gujarat. People of India are not fool to understand why the Centre has decided to send IMCT to Bengal ‘first’ despite having less number of Covid-19 cases as compared to other states,” he said.
“In their very first attempt they exposed themselves. Now, it is beyond any doubt that Centre is doing politics here in Bengal since the state election is near. It is crystal clear now. BJP leaders started making baseless allegations which was supported by the governor through his tweets and all of a sudden IMCT came without any health experts. The governor has gone berserk. He is not speaking on his own. His voice is ‘His Master’s Voice’. The state government was informed too late about their plan and they moved on their own with the help of BSF. Can someone explain us what does it mean? Also, we got faulty kits and BJP blaming us for low testing. Why the BJP is mum on these issues?” he added.
Roy said, “The central government is suffering from acute policy paralysis. The first death in China was reported on December 31 and the government was sleeping. There were no precautionary measures from the central government in the month of January and February. They were sleeping and all of a sudden Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a lockdown. Same he did at the time of demonitisation to get the maximum prime time coverage. He could have planned it perfectly and should have given some time to the people to return to their homes. We asked to close Parliament but PM Modi said we are behaving like school children and asking for leave.”
“Do you have any doubts that the nationwide lockdown was delayed only to topple the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh? A close look in their stands clearly shows that behind every step, there is politics in the name of pandemic,” he added.
Political experts Kapil Thakur feels that BJP is trying to regain its lost ground in Bengal, especially after TMC managed to retain all the municipalities and panchayats which were captured by the BJP.
“Not the least, the by-polls which were held in last November was a major setback for the BJP after they lost all three Kaliaganj, Kharagpur Sadar and Karimpur seats to TMC. The citizenship issue went against them and now there is no doubt that BJP is eyeing at 2021 state polls and the recent standoffs between the BJP and TMC in Bengal over Covid-19 is linked to those lost grounds. After facing setback over citizenship issues, BJP sees this pandemic as a good ground to corner TMC politically in Bengal,” he said.
He, however, stressed that the state government should have acted in more transparent manner in dealing with the crisis. In a major boost for the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the state, the party bagged all the three Assembly seats where bypolls were held on November 25 by trouncing the BJP. The TMC won the Kaliaganj,
Kharagpur Sadar and Karimpur bypolls. The BJP emerged in the second position in all the three seats.
The poll result proved significant for both the TMC and the BJP considering the upcoming 2021 Assembly polls in the state. Then, BJP candidate Kamal Chandra Sarkar, who lost to the TMC’s Tapan Deb Singha in Kaliaganj, had attributed the loss to the "people's fear" around the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Kharagpur Sadar and Kaliaganj seats were a battle of prestige for the BJP as the two seats are known to be its strongholds. The TMC won the Kaliaganj seat for the first time.
Kaliaganj assembly constituency is a part of Raiganj Lok Sabha seat, which was won by the BJP’s Debasree Chaudhuri in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year.
Chaudhuri won the seat with a margin of 60,574 votes, with the BJP’s vote share increasing by 21.76% as compared to Congress candidate Kanai Lal Agarwal who secured 4,51,078 votes. CPI(M) candidate Md Salim, sitting MP from Raiganj, came in third.
In the 2016 assembly elections, Congress candidate Pramatha Nath Ray won the Kaliaganj seat by defeating TMC’s Basatna Roy. Although the BJP was nowhere in the constituency, it performed well in the last Lok Sabha elections in Raigunj, with Chaudhuri becoming an MP.
Similarly, the Kharagpur assembly constituency is part of Medinipur Lok Sabha constituency from where state BJP president Dilip Ghosh won the last Lok Sabha polls. Ghosh had secured 6,85,433 votes as compared to 5,96,481 secured by TMC’s Manas Bhunia. The most significant factor was Ghosh’s increased vote share, which rose by 34.36%, while the TMC vote percentage decreased by 4.19%.
According to the TMC’s internal assessment, more than 2,000 strong leaders, who actually have the capability to turn the tables, have come back to the Trinamool in the last one year. Most of them are booth leaders, having a great connect at the grassroot-level.
Senior BJP leaders like Kailash Vijayavargiya, Amit Malviya, Rahul Sinha and Dilip Ghosh always showed confidence that they are going to form the next government in Bengal and still leaving no stone unturned to attack the state government over handling the Covid-19 situation.
“I would like to urge the West Bengal government to take action against the culprits of ration scam or else there will be severe consequences,” BJP National Secretary Rahul Sinha said.
Other BJP leaders Kailash Vijayavargiya and Amit Malviya hit out at Mamata Banerjee for failing to maintain transparency in Covid-19 figures with letter and tweets.
In the 2016 Assembly elections, the BJP’s vote share was 10.2 per cent and in 2019 Lok Sabha it went up to 40.3 per cent. There was an increase of 30.1 per cent vote share mainly because of Hindus coalescing towards the BJP.
In the last three years, the BJP has managed to cultivate religion-driven politics in Bengal and it was evident with its significant rise in Bengal in terms of its vote share.
A close analysis says that from 2011 Assembly to 2016 Assembly polls, Left-Front has lost its vote share by 9.88 per cent, and from 2014 Lok Sabha to 2019 Lok Sabha its vote share further plummeted to nearly 16 per cent.
However, Congress’s vote share from 2011 to 2016 Assembly elections increased from 8.91 per cent to 12.3 percent but fell drastically (9.6%) in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. In the general elections held this year, the party managed to secure only five per cent votes.
To sum up with the political developments/statistics after the last panchayat and by-polls in Bengal, BJP plans to go aggressively for ground level campaigning to strengthen the booths in all the districts in the state has suffered a massive jolt due to the lockdown.
On the other side, once the situation gets normal, the TMC needs to tap nearly 30 per cent Hindu votes, which coalesced towards the BJP (mainly from Left-Front and the Congress).
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