Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, June 13: The BJP under the prime minister Narendra Modi perhaps never had it so bad in any state as the situation it was facing in West Bengal. Hitherto accustomed only with one-way traffic of the people coming from other parties to the BJP, the ruling party hierarchy for the first time is now experiencing a rush in the reverse direction.
After suffering humiliating defeat in the state Assembly elections, the BJP is now struggling to hold back its rank and file it had been building since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when it sprang surprise by capturing 18 seats, many of them in the Trinamool Congress heartland of Kolkata urban.
Shockingly enough for the BJP, a large number of its workers were giving unsolicited “public apology” for opposing the TMC chief and the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in the just-concluded Assembly elections.
Reports received from districts in the state said the TMC rebels who had crossed over to the BJP before the elections were making a bee-line to return to the TMC fold. The reports said the BJP grass root workers have now taken to express their remorse for backing the BJP in the Assembly elections. The workers from Labhpur, Bolpur and Sainthia in Birbhum district to Dhaniakhali in Hooghly district use public announcement systems atop e-rickshaws declaring that they have misunderstood the BJP.
The BJP, however, claimed before the media that the TMC “intimidation” tactics were behind the public apologies. Though it altogether could not be brushed aside, this could not be the sole reason since the alleged post-poll violence against the BJP workers has ebbed considerably and many of those who had fled from their homes following attacks have started returning.
After the BJP failed to hold back its national vice-president Mukul Roy from returning to his mother organization, another former TMC leader and minister in the Mamata Banerjee cabinet last time, Rajib Banerjee, who crossed over to the BJP just before the elections was making overtures for “ghar wapasi.”
The report said the BJP workers are now apologising to the TMC in public meetings. “We were persuaded by the BJP. It is a fraudulent party. We have no alternative to Hon’ble CM Mamata Banerjee, and we want to be part of her development programme,” a public announcement system in Bolpur’s ward no 18 proclaimed. Similar apologies through loudspeakers mounted on autorickshaws and e-rickshaws were issued by the BJP workers in several other districts in the state.
Another group of 300 BJP workers returned to the TMC fold after taking oath in Sainthia. “We had gone to the BJP by mistake. We are joining the TMC from today to support Mamata Banerjee’s development work.” The BJP workers in Dhaniakhali were allowed to start a new innings after a public apology to TMC activists for their “arrogant behavior.” But the Hooghly BJP leaders claimed their workers were “forced” to join the TMC.
While welcoming Mukul Roy back into the party fold this week, Mamata Banerjee had made it clear that those who had been bitterly criticizing the TMC and her government would not be received back in the party. Her hints apparently was towards the leaders like Suvendu Adhikari, who after serving in her government for almost the entire five-year tenure, changed sides just on the eve of the elections and became the bitterest critic of the TMC government during the poll campaigning.
Maharashtra’s Shiv Sena has accused the Modi-led Centre of indulging in ‘third class’ politics instead of solving the nation’s problems while referring to the Centre’s recent tussles with the West Bengal government in a Sunday editorial in party mouthpiece “Saamana.”
“The ongoing Centre-state tussle is a challenge to the federal system of governance. It’s true that the BJP is very hurt by its crushing defeat in the recently concluded West Bengal polls, but then, there is no need for the Central government to take this defeat by heart,” said Sena MP Sanjay Raut in his weekly column ‘Rokthok’.
He said the face-off between the Bengal government and the Centre over former Bengal chief secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay’s resignation was like ‘women fighting over water at the common water tap.’
Bandopadhyay was caught in the middle of a political firestorm after chief minister Banerjee and Bandopadhyay decided to skip a scheduled meeting with Modi at Kalaikunda airbase to review the damage brought about by Cyclone Yaas on May 28 that upset the centre and the BJP.
Bandopadhyay, a 1987-batch Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer of West Bengal cadre, was set to retire on May 31 but the state asked Centre for a three month extension of his tenure, which was granted but with an order to report to the department of training and personnel in New Delhi by 10am on May 31, his last working day. Bandopadhyay chose to retire and was subsequently appointed as the CM Mamata Banerjee’s chief adviser. Centre then show caused the officer for skipping the meeting with the PM and also made vigilance clearance mandatory earlier this month for states or government departments offering post-retirement jobs to bureaucrats.
Raut also said reinstatement of former Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Dasgupta, who resigned from the Upper House in March to unsuccessfully contest the West Bengal assembly elections, was unprecedented.
“Dasgupta has been nominated by the President. This man had resigned from the Rajya Sabha to contest the assembly polls. He was defeated and within one month, he was renominated again. This has never happened in the history of the Rajya Sabha ever since it was founded in 1952,” said Raut.
Raut also took potshots at the Central government saying it was spending time and money on the Central Vista Project instead of tackling the important issues facing the nation. “The Central government is focussed on constructing new residences for the Prime Minister and the vice president. They will get new houses, but what about the citizens? Citizens have slipped into poverty with about 130 million people having lost their jobs due to Covid-19 in April, 2020,” Raut said.
He also accused the BJP of having treated the Shiv Sena during its alliance government in Maharashtra as “slaves” and said attempts were made to finish off the party politically when it was in power with the BJP in Maharashtra from 2014 to 2019.
Addressing Sena workers in Jalgaon in north Maharashtra on Saturday, Raut said, “The Shiv Sena had a secondary status in the previous government and was (treated) like slaves. Attempts were also made to finish off our party by misusing the very power which was enjoyed because of our support.”
Raut’s remarks came days after Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray met the Prime Minister in Delhi separately setting off political speculations in the state.
The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance crumbled in 2019 over the issue of chief ministership. The Sena, which was one of the oldest allies of the BJP, later formed an unlikely alliance with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra.
Raut said he always thought that the Sena should have its chief minister in Maharashtra. “Even if Shiv Sainiks don’t get anything, we can proudly say the state’s leadership is now in the hands of the Shiv Sena. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was formed with this sentiment (in November 2019),” he said.
Raut asserted that chief minister’s post would remain with the Sena for the full five year term and there was no scope of discussion for sharing the post. “The Chief Minister’s post will remain with the Shiv Sena for full five years. The post will not be shared…because it is a commitment which was given (by the constituents) when the Maha Vikas Aghadi was formed,” Raut said in Nashik.