Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 15: The 294-seat West Bengal Assembly is certain to be the most hotly-contested state in the April elections to four states and the union territory of Puducherry with the BJP trying hard to nudge out the Trinamool Congress which has remained in power in the eastern state for the last 15 years.
The Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who trounced the mighty Left regime in Bengal in the 2011 Assembly polls, is now eyeing a fourth term as Chief Minister. The 71-year-old firebrand leader faces anti-incumbency due to her long rule, but remains the tallest political leader in the state, with mass appeal unmatched by anyone in her rival camps.
West Bengal elections are likely to remain a straight contest between the ruling TMC and the BJP with all other parties, including the once strong CPM and the Congress biting the dust. The Congress in the coming elections is learnt to have decided to go alone and have no truck with the CPM as it was in 2021. The move may further reduce the challenges of the two parties though they may spoil some TMC votes and indirectly benefit the BJP.
Ms Banerjee government’s social welfare schemes, particularly those for women, have created a loyal support base that backs her in every election. Mamata Banerjee is expected to build her campaign around Bengali identity and project the Centre as anti-Bengal. The SIR, alleged misuse of central agencies and attempts to paint the BJP as an “outsider” will feature prominently in her political attacks.
Racing to beat the model code of conduct, Chief Minister Banerjee has announced the payout of dearness allowance arrears and hiked the honorarium to priests and muezzins in the state by Rs 500 a month. This time, her government faces 15 years of anti-incumbency and must counter questions on corruption and law and order.
The BJP, which won 77 seats in the 294-member Assembly, will be going all-out for a breakthrough in this election. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead the party’s campaign, and a galaxy of top BJP leaders are likely to address rallies in Bengal in the run-up to the polls.
The party named Samik Bhattacharya, Rajya Sabha MP and a BJP veteran, as its state chief last July. Besides prepping a strong campaign, Bhattacharya will need to address infighting within the state party unit and counter the Trinamool’s “outsider” pitch — a political weapon Banerjee has used in every election to paint the BJP as a party alien to Bengal’s cultural ethos.
The BJP’s key planks in this election will be targeting Trinamool over alleged appeasement of minorities, corruption, law and order and refusal to implement central schemes in Bengal. A key talking point in this election in Bengal is the recently held Special Intensive Revision of voter lists. The Trinamool, which even went to court over the exercise, has accused the BJP of using the Election Commission to snatch away voting rights of legitimate voters. The BJP, on the other hand, has accused the Trinamool of protecting illegal immigrants for political objectives.
Names of as many as 63 lakh voters have been deleted in the exercise. For context, this is more than the difference in total votes the Trinamool and the BJP got in the 2021 state polls. This effectively means that the SIR exercise could potentially have a massive impact on the outcome of the election. This explains Banerjee’s strong resistance and her war cry against the Election Commission. The Commission, however, has maintained that it’s a routine exercise to clean the voter lists.
The BJP has repeatedly targeted the Trinamool government over corruption. The state government’s big setback in the teachers’ recruitment case, when the Supreme Court scrapped the appointment of 25,000 government teachers, will feature prominently in BJP leaders’ speeches. Another front on which rivals will try to corner the Mamata Banerjee government is the state’s law-and-order situation.
The rape-murder of a 31-year-old doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in August 2024 had led to nationwide outrage, and the opposition will leave no stone unturned to remind the people of the RG Kar incident and similar cases of gender violence in various parts of the state. Trinamool, on the other hand, claims that the state government has responded promptly to each of these crimes and accuses the BJP of politicising sensitive issues for political mileage.
The BJP will be trying a massive campaign strategy similar to Uttar Pradesh, deploying leaders and strengthening booth networks while the TMC would be attacking the BJP on price rise, LPG shortages, and central-state relations. The Bengal politics is currently polarized mainly between these two parties. About 80 constituencies have significant Muslim voters which the TMC traditionally dominates while the BJP would be focussing on consolidating Hindu votes and concentrate on borer issues.
In the 2021 Assembly polls, the Trinamool Congress won 215 seats in the 294-member Assembly. The BJP finished a distant second, winning 77 seats. While the Trinamool marginally improved on its 2016 tally, the BJP had made a huge jump from winning three seats in 2016 to becoming the main opposition in 2021. The CPM, which ruled Bengal for three decades, failed to win a single seat. The Congress, which was in alliance with the Left, also drew a blank.
