Kolkata: A year after losing the state election in West Bengal, the BJP Thursday blamed Covid for its failure to dislodge the Mamata Banerjee government.
The party’s national president J.P. Nadda, on the last day of his two-day visit to the state, told a gathering in Kolkata: “We would have nailed the election, but the Covid pandemic resurfaced in April and, after the fourth phase of polling, we couldn’t campaign. The speed at which we were campaigning, and the support that we got, we were hopeful.”
On 22 April 2021, the Election Commission (EC) of India prohibited political parties from holding padyatras, roadshows and rallies as the second Covid wave spread through the country. At that point, only two phases of polling were remaining in West Bengal, which altogether saw eight phases of voting.
Nadda’s statement was dismissed by the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), which said “people have rejected the BJP in Bengal”.
“Their central leaders, including the Prime Minister, were daily passengers to the state. TMC had urged the EC to reduce the phases but that wasn’t done. Now this excuse is being used by their party president to hide their shortcomings,” TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh told ThePrint.
Also read: Bengal post-poll violence: 70 out of 303 ‘displaced’ people returned home, Mamata govt tells HC
BJP leadership’s message to Bengal unit
Senior BJP leaders from Delhi have been visiting West Bengal to boost the party’s state unit in recent days.
After Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s visit in May, Nadda’s trip is being seen as part of attempts to make a fresh push for the state.
“Of course, it revitalises our workers when the home minister or party president come to Bengal. But what’s discussed behind closed doors should remain within the party and the rest of the speeches on public forums are there for all to hear,” former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta told ThePrint, when asked if the top leadership had spelt out any plan for West Bengal after 2021.
On 6 May, Shah held a closed-door meeting with the Bengal party leadership at a Kolkata hotel.
ThePrint spoke to multiple leaders who attended the talks. They said that the home minister, while giving the example of Kerala, stated that the BJP had lost workers in the Left-led state despite having zero MLAs, so post-poll violence in West Bengal could not be a deterrent for the party workers.
Addressing the state executive committee meeting Wednesday, Nadda spoke on similar lines. “I don’t want to speak about post-poll violence and the 12,000 cases that happened… or the 190 camps we had to set up. There are more than 60 murder cases, but I don’t want to cry over it. We know how to fight, and we will fight democratically,” he said.
A BJP leader who attended the meetings said these “comments have sent out a negative message to our karyakartas“.
“What Amit Shah said was leaked to the media and then widely reported. But our workers are still scared to step out of their homes and support the BJP openly (in Bengal). And that’s weakening our booths, which play a key role in winning polls,” the leader added.
In August last year, the Calcutta High Court handed over the investigation into alleged murder and rape during the wave of post-poll violence in West Bengal to the CBI.
Jayanta Ghoshal, author of Mamata: Beyond 2021, said the central BJP leaders were trying to take on CM Mamata Banerjee, who was already back on the ground touring state districts.
“The BJP tried making post-poll violence a big issue here and that worked in their favour for a few months. But now it’s a non-issue and the comments made by Shah and Nadda are clear that the central leaders don’t want the state unit to only rely on New Delhi but amp up the organisation themselves in Bengal,” Ghoshal added.
“On the ground, the people of Bengal are no longer talking about post-poll violence. However, for the panchayat election (next year), the state BJP may once again make it an issue, overlooking their leadership’s message,” he told ThePrint.
Political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty, who is also a political science professor at Bangabasi College in Kolkata, said the “Bengal BJP is stuck in a vicious cycle, but isn’t able to find a footing in the state”.
“The party is trying to shift focus from post-poll violence, but I doubt they will be able to do that completely given the ground reality of the state,” he added.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also read: Before CBI probe into West Bengal violence, let’s define the ‘post-poll’ period