West Bengal BJP clamours for Article 355, but its problems lie elsewhere
West Bengal BJP’s clamour for imposition of Article 355 in the state is symptomatic of the problem stunting the party’s growth in the state, which is otherwise witnessing a steady expansion of the saffron ecosystem.
An assessment report that the party’s state unit sent to the central leadership attributed the BJP’s poor showing in the recently concluded panchayat elections to violence. “The party’s performance would have been much better, had the elections been free and fair. The free and fair polls will only be possible if Article 355 is imposed in the state,” a BJP source quoted party’s state president Sukanta Majumdar as saying in a closed-door meeting held on Sunday (July 16) to do a post-mortem of the party’s performance.
“No election can be conducted in a free and fair manner in the state if Article 355 is not implemented,” said another senior BJP state leader and Union minister of state John Barla. The state unit urged the party high command to impress upon the BJP-led central government the need to impose Article 355 of the Indian Constitution to take control of the law-and-order situation in the state.
The promulgation of Article 355 does not lead to dismissal of a state government, but it entrusts the responsibility of protecting a state against “external aggression” and “internal disturbance” to the Union government.
Poll violence not the issue
The violence in the rural polls has so far taken 50 lives in the state. However, to solely blame the around 15 percent drop in the BJP’s vote share from about 38 percent it had secured in the 2021 Assembly elections on poll violence is missing the wood for the trees, admit many senior BJP leaders privately.
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According to party sources, among those opposed to the hypothesis is former state president Dilip Ghosh, under whose leadership the party had risen to its pinnacle in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. At that time, the BJP had won 18 parliamentary seats with a vote percentage of over 40 percent, recording the best-ever performance by the saffron party in Bengal.
Ghosh even publicly opposed the demand for the imposition of Article 355 in the state, saying that an elected government should be ousted democratically.
The violence in the rural polls was mainly confined to pockets of North Dinajpur, Cooch Behar, Murshidabad, Malda, Birbhum and South 24 Parganas. The BJP not only performed poorly in these districts but also in its strongholds such as the areas dominated by Rajbongshi, Matua and Adivasi communities.
That the party has lost ground in its bastion is evident from its performance in the home turfs of some of its senior leaders representing these communities that till recently constituted the BJP’s main support base. The party lost in Thakurnagar, a Matua stronghold that is part of the home constituency of Union minister Shantasnu Thakur.
Similarly, in the Rajbongshi belt of Cooch Behar, the home turf of Union minister of state for home Nishith Pramanik, the BJP was way behind the Trinamool Congress (TMC). It also trailed far behind the TMC in the Adivasi areas of Junglemahal, as well as in the tea garden areas of Alipurduar.
Alipurduar is the home constituency of another BJP MP and Union minister John Barla. There are also four sitting BJP MLAs from Alipurduar and yet the TMC swept 55 of the 64 gram panchayat seats here.
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Weak organisational presence, broken promises
Poor organisational presence and failure to keep its past promises harmed the BJP’s poll prospects more than violence, believed a section of the party.
They point out that the violence did not prevent the Left-Congress combine from increasing its vote share by around 11 percent. This is an indication that the anti-TMC votes that had consolidated in the BJP after the 2018 rural polls are now deserting the saffron brigade.
One of the reasons for this is broken promises. The BJP had tried to woo the Matuas, a refugee community, with the promise of citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019. The Adivasi Kurmis were also assured that their demand for the inclusion in the Scheduled Tribe list would be favourably looked into.
A regiment called Narayani Sena in the central paramilitary forces for the community was the BJP’s promise to the Rajbongshis. None of the promises have been fulfilled.
Besides this, many state BJP leaders now and then stoked the demand for a separate homeland for the Rajbongshis. A similar failed Gorkhaland promise cost the BJP its support base in Darjeeling hills.
Also read: West Bengal rural polls: TMC takes unassailable lead; BJP distant second
Over-dependence on Centre
The state BJP unit’s other Achilles heel was its over-dependence on the central leadership and Raj Bhawan.
“Instead of fighting it out with the TMC on the ground, our leadership banked on the central leadership and governor to fight our battles. The central government’s decision to freeze release of funds for rural welfare schemes in Bengal like MGNREGA, PMAY following the appeal of the party’s state leadership clearly backfired in the rural polls,” said a BJP block-level leader from the Sundarbans area.
During panchayat elections when Left, Congress and Indian Secular Front were trying to put up resistance against the TMC’s aggression on the ground, the BJP state leadership was busy seeking protection from Raj Bhawan and the court, he pointed out.
By banking on the central leadership to take up the cudgels for them, the state unit failed to galvanise its workers through mass political programmes. As a result the workers started deserting it.
It was the Left parties that mostly hit the streets in protest against alleged corruption and misrule of the TMC government. The growth in its vote share is the outcome of its presence on the ground.
The erosion in the BJP’s support base in Bengal seems antithetical to the growth of the saffron ecosystem in the state.
For instance, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, witnessed 60 per cent increase in attendance in the annual primary level training camps organised last year. The camps are organised every year between Bijoya Dashami (Dussehra) and Diwali.
As per an internal report of the RSS submitted in its executive meeting at Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj last year, the number of its branches (shakhas) increased by around 25 percent within a year, adding 470 new branches to its existing 1,900 branches in the state.