What stands between Mamata’s dole politics and BJP’s Hindutva in Bengal

From birth to marriage to death, there is a dole for all stages of life in Mamata Banerjee’s West Bengal.

For pregnant women, the Trinamool Congress government has a one-year special food package to offer. Then, there is internationally acclaimed Kanyashree scheme (it bagged the UN award in 2017) to incentivise schooling of teenage girls and delaying their marriages until the age of 18, the legal age of marriage.

The government also provides a one-time financial assistance of ₹25,000 to the “economically stressed” families at the time of their daughters’ marriages under a scheme called “Rupashree” launched last year.

For the dead, Banerjee in 2016 launched “Somobyathi”, literally means “empathising.” A financial aid of ₹2,000 is provided under the scheme to the next of kin of a deceased who are too poor to bear the funeral cost of their departed beloved.

Well that’s not all. The list is extensive. Rice at ₹2 per kg, monthly allowance of ₹1,500 for unemployed youth, bicycles to students of classes IX to XII, a monthly pension of ₹1,000 to those with 40 per cent or more disability, old-age pension of ₹1,000 a month for farmers.  This apart, the state government has also exempted farmers from payment of mutation fee for farm land sold for agricultural purposes. The TMC government also extended its largesse to imams, priests and Durga puja committees.

TMC’s claim

The ruling TMC on its official website listed 20 such schemes, which it claims, transformed Bengal since the party came to power in May 2011. To reap electoral benefit from these schemes, the TMC made them their campaign-theme launching several audios and videos to highlight their achievements.

In one such video — christened ‘Pradhan Mantri Hisab Dao’ — a young girl from Haryana’s Rewari village is seen claiming that she has dropped out of the school due to difficulty in reaching there, more than 14 kilometres away from her village. The video then takes a dig at the Centre’s ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojana’.

It then showcases Hooghly district of West Bengal where a rural woman lauds the role of the TMC government’s bicycle scheme in facilitating her mobility and reaching school.

The bicycle scheme, titled “Sabooj Sathi”, and another skill development programme of the West Bengal government “Utkarsh Bangla” earlier this month won the UN-backed prestigious World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) awards.

These welfare measures, the TMC is hopeful, will bring good dividend for it in the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats.

Rupa Pramanik, a voter in South Kolkata parliamentary constituency, endorses the party’s optimism. Both of her school-going daughters, received scholarships and bicycles from the government, she says. Her family also received a financial aid of ₹49,000, under “Gitanjali” housing scheme to repair their dwelling, a few months ago.

West Bengal has also outdone many states in implementing centrally sponsored schemes, particularly those meant for rural areas.

Last year, the Centre adjudged it as the best state in achieving “convergence and livelihood augmentation” through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). It also figured among the three best states in implementing the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Grameen (PMAY-G).

These hard facts make the TMC still a formidable force, particularly in rural Bengal.

TMC’s weakness lies in its strength

Many of these schemes are dogged by allegations of corruption and favouritism in selection of beneficiaries.

“You need to bribe local TMC leaders to get benefit of the schemes or a job,” said Shyamapada Mahato of Bisria village in Purulia district.

The refusal of West Bengal government to share data with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for audit of the schemes further deepens the corruption and nepotism allegations.

TMC, however, vehemently refutes the charges and points out that even the mother and the niece of BJP state president Dilip Ghosh are the beneficiaries of the schemes in Jhargram. His mother Puspalata Ghosh, who stays at the BJP leader’s paternal house in the district’s Kuliana village receives rice at ₹ 2 per kg from the government. Ghosh’s niece Ambesha, a student of class XI, got scholarship and bicycle under the two government schemes.

The flipside

Notwithstanding the brave face put up by the TMC, in private, many leaders admit that dole politics has its flipside and it’s catching up with the party. After all one cannot please all the people all the time with freebies.

“Due to paucity of fund only a handful of people could get the benefits of some welfare schemes. This has created discontentment among those who are left out,” admits a TMC leader from Jhargram district, where the BJP has made significant inroads. He further added that people’s expectations also keep increasing and so after eight-year of TMC rule, it’s natural that some people are yearning for change.

This call for a change is particularly high among the youth, who feel that the state government has not done enough to create job avenues.

“The monthly allowance of ₹1,500 is too meagre. What will I do with that?” said Gajendra Barman (27) of North Dinajpur. He said he is working as a waiter at a restaurant in South Delhi after completing graduation.

Opposition’s poll plank

The Opposition BJP, CPI (M) and the Congress are trying hard to win over the disgruntled lot.  But after three rounds of elections in the state, it appears that the latter two parties are concentrating mainly on certain pockets of their influence rather than devising a pan-state strategy to take on the TMC.

Main concern of these two parties as of now is to prevent further erosion of their support base. The BJP is heavily poaching on the CPI (M) supporters, particularly in the tribal belts of Bengal.

The cash-rich BJP has emerged as a real challenger to the TMC. It unleashed a Hindutva-centric blitzkrieg to polarise the electorate where a large minority population (Muslims constitute 30 per cent of the state’s total population) and rise of radical Islam in certain pockets provide a fertile ground for the lotus to bloom.

NRC and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill

The party has promised to upgrade the National Register of Citizens (NRC) if voted to power to detect “illegal” Bangladeshi migrants. But unlike in the Northeast, the BJP knows that in West Bengal, the NRC could be a double-edged sword and it could antagonise the large Hindu migrant population, particularly the Matuas — a Scheduled Caste community, mostly comprising backward class Hindus who migrated from Bangladesh — whom the BJP is working hard to woo. The seven million-strong community can influence results in at least six Lok Sabha seats spread across bordering districts of Nadia, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas.

Herein lies the importance of the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) for the BJP. It seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955, to provide citizenship to illegal migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who are of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian extraction. The BJP has included the contentious CAB in its manifesto despite stiff opposition from its leaders and allies in the Northeast, primarily with an eye on West Bengal.

The TMC, however, also has a strong presence among the Matuas.

Apart from Hindutva and hyper-nationalism, the BJP is also raking up issues of corruption, particularly the alleged involvement of many TMC leaders in several chit-fund scams and deteriorating law-and-order situation in the state. However, with a chit-fund tainted leader like Mukul Roy now in the BJP, the party’s graft barb does not have much sting.

Palpable sense of anger against the TMC has been witnessed in pockets such as Dakshin Dinajpur, Malda and Murshidabad over the large scale violence in the last year’s panchayat elections. (Elections were held in most of the constituencies in these districts in the first three phases).

However, there is a catch. The Congress and the CPI (M) too has a significant presence here, which could split anti-TMC votes.