Never fight on a ground of the enemy’s choice, is centuries-old military wisdom. Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has put that into practice with the Trinamool’s offensive over alleged atrocities on Bengali-speakers in BJP-ruled states.
She has deftly painted what is essentially a drive against Bengali-speaking Muslims into a drive against Bengalis.
In the last four decades, two political behemoths have lorded over Bengal in every sphere of life. Both the Left in its heyday and Mamata Banerjee in the last 14 years have relied heavily on the minority votebank.
The new strategy – of painting the BJP as anti-Bengali – helps Mamata weather the BJP’s allegations of soft-pedalling on the largest minority community and has also helped in increasing her political appeal to a section of the Bengali Hindus, specially in the urban areas, who have been somewhat restive about the meteoric rise in the wealth of Trinamool leaders, which have come under the scanner of several probe agencies as well.
As Bengal counts down to Assembly elections next year, the BJP in Bengal has once again been caught on the wrong foot, forced to defend the policies followed by BJP state governments that have acted against what they call undocumented migrants.
The truth is that in Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra, Odisha, Chhattisgarh – all states where the BJP is in power – the police action against Bengali-speaking migrants has been mostly against Muslims. A cursory glance through many reports on detention and harassment of Bengali-speaking poor people in those states is enough to prove that.
But Mamata Banerjee has turned it into an anti-Bengali issue, capitalising on what the BJP cannot spell out – that Bengali Hindus have no reason to worry.
The Bengali pride that Mamata is highlighting avoids the religious identity and instead focuses on the linguistic one. Since her annual July 21 rally, Mamata has cited two examples of Bengalis being accused of being illegal immigrants --- Uttam Kumar Brajabasi of Cooch Behar and Anjali Seal of Alipurduar. Both are Hindus.
Some of the past actions of the BJP, especially in Delhi’s CR Park, where diktats were issued on consumption of fish and meat during Navratri observed mostly by north Indian Hindus, only bolsters the anti-Bengali charge.
The BJP, despite the electoral successes it had in Bengal between 2014 and 2019, remains an “outsider” for Kolkata. Two of the top organisational bodies in the party – the parliamentary board and the central election committee – do not include a single BJP leader from Bengal. No Bengali heads any of the frontal organisations either.
Mithun Chakraborty (Videograb)
In the list of national executive members, from Bengal the name of actor-politician Mithun Chakraborty appears first.
Suvendu Adhikari, leader of Opposition in the Bengal Assembly, and the newly minted state BJP president Samik Bhattacharya, who has started his tenure with a soft approach on the Muslim issue, have so far been unable to counter Mamata’s attack.
On Thursday, the BJP fielded the actor-politician Mithun Chakraborty, who is on a four-day visit to Kolkata, to answer Mamata’s charges.
“Look, I built a hotel in Bangalore,” Chakraborty told journalists. “The major work force was migrant labourers from Bengal. There was no Bangladeshi. But if there are Bangladeshis, we have to call them Bangladeshi. They are being caught.”
He said he had never seen any Bengali being targeted.
“Which Bengali has been attacked? This must be made clear first. These are provocative statements to create trouble and win elections,” he said.
Bengali pride is proving to be Mamata Banerjee’s masterstroke. The chief minister, past master of many a street fight, has focused on the linguistic identity of those being targeted in BJP-ruled states, rather than the religious.
The Bihar factor
The Election Commission’s special intensive revision (SIR) in Bihar, which the national Opposition is fighting tooth and nail, has so far reportedly weeded out 56 lakh voters.
After the 2024 Lok Sabha polls the BJP, with far lower seats and vote share, was still only 42,37,212 votes behind the Trinamool. Mamata has publicly stated Bengal is the BJP’s next target for SIR and has already launched a ground movement against it. Language is the other weapon in her armoury.
Deletion of voters would hurt the ruling Trinamool more than anyone else.
