BJP leaders lacking coordination in Sandeshkhali. No wonder Modi has to rush in

Perhaps an arrest could take place before PM Modi lands in Bengal, which would certainly take much wind out of his sails. The one-man show cannot afford that and risk a 2021 redux.

Representational image | BJP supporters burn effigies, raise slogans during a protest against the Sandeshkhali violence, in Kolkata on 11 February | ANI Photo

Here are the pros and cons of a one-man-show in politics: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is having to rush to West Bengal to help the state BJP unit make the most of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee exposing her Achilles’ heel — Sandeshkhali.

BJP leaders in Bengal haven’t been sitting idle. Sukanta Majumdar and Suvendu Adhikari have been running around to score political points off the disappearance of TMC leader Sheikh Shahjahan, who has been missing for 50 days today. But their efforts appear diluted. Majumdar fell off the bonnet of a police jeep on his way to Sandeshkhali and landed in a hospital for a couple of days while Adhikari gave the TMC a golden opportunity to create a diversion by allegedly calling a Sikh police officer a “Khalistani” during a face-off on his way to the village.

Other leaders of the party, too, have been creating noise but are barely there on the battlefield. Former BJP state chief Dilip Ghosh, under whose leadership BJP MPs shot up from two to 18 and MLAs from 3 to 77 in Bengal, is largely absent. from the battlefield. Hooghly MP Locket Chatterjee addressed a press meet in Delhi and accused TMC leaders of targetting Hindu women in Sandeshkhali and added that Bengal was “most unsafe” for women. Agnimitra Paul, BJP MLA from Asansol South, tried to make a splash on a Bengali TV channel, but TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh launched an “unparliamentary” verbal assault on her, and the tu-tu-main-main that followed shifted focus from Sandeshkhali to the catfight.

No comparison to Didi back then

What would Banerjee have done if the Sandeshkhali episode had happened during the Left government? I can almost imagine her wading into the river in the Sundarbans and threatening to swim to the island of Sandeshkhali if the police barred her way. Can you picture it?

And remember how she rode pillion on a scooter to reach Nandigram when both the police and the TMC barricaded the road to the troubled spot in 2007? Or her endless dharna outside the Tata Nano plant at Singur? Or her protest marches at Lalgarh when the Maoists ruled? At the very least, she would have brought Bengal to a standstill with bandh calls and paralysing padyatras.

In comparison to what Bengal saw in the run-up to the ouster of the Left Front, the state BJP’s efforts seem lame. The sense of coordination is missing. No wonder the PM is having to rush in to make the most of the opportunity. The Election Commission of India (ECI) is perhaps days away from declaring the dates for the 2024 Lok Sabha election. It has already announced that Bengal elections will have the largest deployment of central forces, larger than Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, or even Kashmir: 920 companies.

In the circumstances, it is no surprise that Banerjee has suddenly changed tactics. For days, she permitted her party spokespersons to push the line that nothing really happened at Sandeshkhali, that it was all a grand Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) act abetted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). And then suddenly, we saw the district police chief changed. Government officials were sent swarming across Sandeshkhali Block 2 to go door to door, record people’s complaints, and promise to fix them. On Thursday, police even kicked a football around with the local residents at a playground that was purportedly locked up by Shahjahan & co for years. Graffiti on the boundary wall about a Sheikh Shahjahan Fan Club Football Tournament was also erased.

Is that a signal that Shahjahan’s arrest is imminent?

An asset for TMC

The “true tiger of Sundarbans” is what local villagers call Sheikh Shahjahan. He has been a vote-machine for the TMC since 2013 and the CPI-M too before that. Whoever he backs in the polls, wins the polls. He outdid himself in the July 2023 panchayat polls: Out of a total of 333 seats in Sandeshkhali Blocks 1 and 2, TMC won 310 of 333 seats without a contest. There was more than one candidate in 23 seats, but Shahjahan’s magic ensured the TMC won all.

As someone who delivers 100 per cent results, no question, Shahjahan is an asset. No ignoring the fact that he belongs to the minority community.

But that he is absconding while his two Hindu aides – Shibu Hazra and Uttam Sardar – have been arrested is also becoming a talking point in an atmosphere that the BJP-RSS ecosystem has been steadily trying to polarise. The RSS has had a presence in the area, as confirmed by Banerjee herself. It has long made the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities in North 24 Parganas district — rather, all of West Bengal — its prime targets. So, its pitch is: Look, the TMC government is appeasing Muslims. It has arrested the Hindu leaders but not Shahjahan.

Local Muslims in Sandeshkhali express anxiety about Shahjahan being on the run. For many, he is Robin Hood, but his vanishing act is bringing the community a bad name, they say. For middle-class Muslims living outside Sandeshkhali, the absconder is becoming an embarrassment. Banerjee may have worried that an arrest would alienate some in the Muslim community. That calculation is beginning to fray.

So perhaps an arrest could take place before the PM lands in Bengal, which would certainly take much wind out of his sails. The one-man show cannot afford that and risk a 2021 redux. He is sure to come prepared for any eventuality. Unless the match is fixed beforehand, Banerjee, too, is sure to have several aces up her sleeve. It is ‘on your marks, get set, go’ time, and Sandeshkhali is the first move.

The author is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @Monideepa62. Views are personal.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)