If Bengal is that village in Gaul like in the Asterix comics, Bhupender Yadav is the centurion entrusted by Julius Caesar – read Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, the BJP – to overcome the magic potion and conquer the little piece of land holding out against the might of the Roman Empire .

Since November last year, the Union environment minister has spent more time in Calcutta than in Delhi’s Paryavaran Bhawan – his ministry HQ – or his constituency, Alwar in Rajasthan.

This year, Yadav is in for his toughest electoral battle – in Bengal, a state that electorally eludes the BJP, despite the occasional surge in votes and seats in both Lok Sabha and state Assembly polls.

In these weeks that Yadav has spent in Bengal, he has travelled all over the state, covering every district. His core strategy for the Bengal election, sources in the BJP said, is to convince the voters about what the BJP is going to do for the state in answer to the “poor performance” of the incumbent Mamata Banerjee government.

“The very fact that he has already covered all the districts in such a short time reveals how seriously he is taking the task,” said a Bengal BJP leader.

“He is a hands-on man. He thoroughly understands the organisation and the election mechanism of the party and tweaks the strategies keeping in mind the local factors.”

Handpicked by the late Arun Jaitley, Yadav has been a key man in the BJP often working away from the limelight.

For more than a decade now Yadav, like an army general from the medieval age, has developed a reputation as an election manager for the BJP who ensures the party gets to occupy the seat of power in the states.

His stellar track record to keep the BJP’s well-oiled poll juggernaut rolling speaks for itself.

In 2024, Yadav was more occupied with Bhubaneswar than his own constituency, Alwar. The Lok Sabha polls and the Odisha state Assembly polls were being held simultaneously. The BJP had parted ways with its long-term ally, the Naveen Patnayak-led BJD. The BJP leaders in Delhi did not want to piggyback on the BJD any longer.

In Odisha, Yadav drafted the blueprint that ensured the BJP could form the government on its own for the first time and reduce the former ruling parties, the BJD and the Congress, to also-rans.

A year before that, Yadav and railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw were instrumental in ensuring the rampant factionalism in the Madhya Pradesh unit of the party and anti-incumbency did not come in the way of the BJP coming to power in the central Indian state once again.

Post the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the BJP seemed to be on a sticky wicket in Maharashtra. The Congress, with Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar backing it, had put up an unusual performance bagging the most number of Lok Sabha seats out of the 48 in Maharashtra. With the Assembly polls approaching, the BJP was determined to recover lost ground.

Yadav was deputed to the western state. For nearly five months till the elections were held, he lived in a rented flat in Mumbai.

In those five months, he had met almost all the functionaries in the party, frontal organisations and other members of the Sangh Parivar. He brought the other leaders of the Mahayuti, former chief minister Eknath Shinde and the now-late Ajit Pawar with Devendra Fadnavis to iron out the differences.

The result: The Mahayuti comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena and the NCP secured a landslide victory. Yadav also ensured the BJP emerged on top and laid claim to the chief minister’s seat.

Those in Mumbai and Bhubaneswar, who have seen Yadav from close quarters, say he is a silent worker.

“In the party’s poll victories in the last three years, there is the unmistakable stamp of Bhupender Yadav,” said a senior BJP leader. “He delivered in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra and even the Hyderabad municipal elections [held in 2020, the BJP won 48 seats, four more than the Congress]. He works hard, he works silently and he delivers.”

An early riser, Yadav in his previous poll campaigns worked till late into the night meeting leaders and cadres, in-person or online.

Over the years he has partnered in different states with Rajnath Singh (Odisha), Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra (Vaishnaw). In Bengal, his partner in preparing the party for the poll battle is the former Tripura chief minister Biplab Deb.

Bengal is not unfamiliar territory for Yadav. Five years ago, he was in the state as the de facto election prabhari (in-charge) for the party. Though the BJP could not capitalise on the gains it had made in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it did emerge as the main opposition party in the state.

The Ajmer-born lawyer has the ears of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah and a section of Bengal BJP leaders believes it will work in their favour.

Apart from the BJP functionaries, Yadav has also been meeting people from cross-sections of society in private gatherings in Calcutta, trying to get a firmer grip on the pulse of Bengal.

“He is soft-spoken, fond of quoting poems. He knows with whom he can talk about the finer aspects of life and with whom he can talk about politics,” said a source.

In private conversations, Yadav has expressed confidence that the BJP will achieve its goal in Bengal.

The worry for the master election strategist from Rajasthan remains Bengal’s chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who knows when to whip out game-changing heavy artillery from her arsenal.

In the siege of Bengal this year, will Mamata’s magic potion – critics say doles, supporters say leadership – work again? Or will the trusted general finally conquer?

The answer is blowing in Bengal’s wind.