TMC triumphs Bengal by-polls as infighting leaves BJP fractured

Political pundits in West Bengal were surprised by a comment made by a senior state BJP leader barely a few hours before the commencement of counting of votes for the by-poll in six assembly constituencies.

The comment encapsulated the current TMC-dominated political reality of Bengal, as has been reiterated by the results of the by-poll announced on Saturday (November 23).

TMC's clean sweep

Expectedly, the state’s ruling TMC made a clean sweep bagging all the six seats, including the tribal-dominated Madarihat constituency, which was in the BJP kitty. Incidentally, this is the first time that the Madarihat elected a TMC candidate.

Even before EVMs were taken out for the counting, former state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh was all praise for TMC national general secretary and Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, sparking speculation of him bolting the saffron stable.

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Whether Ghosh, who has been groomed in the RSS’s grove, would actually jump the BJP ship though is still in the realm of speculation. But, there is no gainsaying that the BJP, the state’s main opposition party, is a divided house, more busy setting its own house in order than challenging the TMC.

'I made the BJP a fighting unit'

Apart from praising political acumen of TMC general, Ghosh in an interview with a TV channel on Friday night did not even hide his frustration over the functioning of the state BJP and the treatment meted out to him.

“The party might be thinking my days are over. But don’t forget it was I who made the BJP a fighting unit in Bengal. We fought and even wrested victories," he said.

It was under his presidency that the BJP exhibited its best-ever electoral performance in the state, increasing its vote share from 17 per cent in 2014 to 40 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It had won 18 of the state’s 42 parliamentary seats, emerging as the state’s principal opposition party, overshadowing the Left Front and the Congress combine.

The party could never repeat that performance till date.

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Endless infighting

Infighting is one of the factors attributed for the BJP’s diminishing electoral fortune.

“The party is in disarray since its defeat in the 2021 assembly elections,” said a convenor of the BJP Bachao Mancha, a platform of the disgruntled BJP old guards. “To put it bluntly, we have been losing ground ever since the party’s central leadership or more precisely Amit Shah, started giving more priorities to TMC turncoats like Suvendu Adhikari over the RSS-schooled BJP leaders.”

Adhikari was roped in from the TMC ahead of the last assembly elections and was made the party’s unspoken chief ministerial face even as Ghosh was the state president then. Adhikari contested against Mamata Banerjee from Nandigram and won.

Imports of a battery of TMC leaders at the behest of Adhikari in the run up to the assembly elections, created a bad blood between old timers and the newcomers. The BJP is yet to overcome that infighting, which saw many of its leaders, including MLAs, switching over to the TMC in the past few years.

'Not surprised'

The party organisation in Bengal is now a pale shadow of what it was in 2019-21. The ambitious target of enrolling 1 crore members that party veteral Amit Shah had set for the state unit in October this year, could not even reach seven digits so far, according to party sources.

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“I am not surprised by the outcome of the by-elections. At least I knew this was coming,” Ghosh said after the announcement of the results.

To the TMC’s advantage, the Left Front has so far failed to fill the vacuum in the opposition space created by a weakened BJP.

'TMC has hijacked Left agenda'

The TMC has hijacked the Left agenda through welfarism. The Left is in a dilemma on whether or not to support the TMC government’s slew of such doles or to oppose them. The CPI(M) openly admitted that its criticism of Mamata Banerjee government’s Lakshmir Bhandar scheme as mere alms for the women proved costly in the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year.

In the absence of any strong anti-TMC agenda, the Left is failing to regroup itself. This time, it was banking for its revival on the middle-class angst centred around the brutal rape and murder of a female doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital — a crime seen as an outcome of the culture of criminal patronage allegedly developed in the state under the TMC rule.

The astute handling of the outrage by the chief minister ensured that it did not snowball into a massive statewide protest, dashing any hope of the Left revival.

With no strong opposition force in the state, the TMC is having a free-run despite being in power for 13 years. The results of the by-elections only reinforced it.