BJP gives finishing touches to its Bengal assembly election strategy
With lessons from Bihar, the BJPis giving “finishing touches” to its strategy for the WestBengal assembly elections due in April-May next year, partysources said on Wednesday.
The NDA has won 125 seats in the 243-member Biharassembly, results of which were declared on Tuesday. The BJP,after bagging 74 seats, has emerged as the second-largestparty in the state, with a tally much higher than its ally JD(U)s 43.
The saffron party has set a target of winning morethan 200 seats in the 294-strong Bengal assembly.
With Bihar done and dusted, the BJP will now shift itsfocus to politically crucial West Bengal, which sends 42 MPsto the Lok Sabha, two more than Bihar, they said.
The BJP, which has made deep inroads in West Bengal bywinning 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state in lastyears elections, four less than the ruling TMC, was waitingfor the Bihar election results before beginning its “finalassault” on the Mamata Banerjee government, party sourcessaid.
BJP national general secretary and the partys WestBengal minder, Kailash Vijayvargiya, had on Tuesday assertedthe victory in the state will be “much bigger” as the “partywill storm to power with a two-thirds majority”.
“The people of West Bengal are fed up with the misruleof the TMC and they want a change,” he said.
BJP state chief Dilip Ghosh echoed him, saying, “AfterBihar, it will be West Bengal for the BJP.” “The saffron wave witnessed in neighbouring Bihar willsweep away the TMC in West Bengal too. The difference betweenthe elections in the two states, however, is that we were inpower in Bihar for nearly 15 years but in West Bengal, we area challenger,” Ghosh said.
A section of the state BJP leaders, however,underlined that the Bihar election results will have littleimpact on polls in West Bengal, other than seats along theborder, but it will act as a “morale booster” for partyworkers in the state.
Several state BJP leaders said the party, taking a cuefrom the Bihar poll results, will “re-strategise” its campaignissues for the West Bengal elections.
To corner the TMC, the BJP had been so far stressingupon alleged misrule, law and order issues, violence,corruption and the state administrations handling of theCOVID-19 situation.
“The Bihar election results have shown that issueslike unemployment and migrant labour crisis are also importantin several seats. So, we need to stress upon these problems aswell.
“As Bihar was the first state to go to assemblyelections after the COVID-19 outbreak, there are a few thingsall of us need to learn from the polls,” a senior West BengalBJP leader said.
Although the BJP has the advantage of being an”untested challenger”, the party is well aware that it will beup against mighty Mamata Banerjee, who has a reputation ofbeing a street-fighter politician, party sources said.
“If RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav can put up such a fight,it is for anyones guess the kind of contest we will face inWest Bengal,” another state BJP leader said.
As per the parliamentary poll results, the saffroncamp had bagged 40.5 per cent votes and was ahead in more than125 assembly seats in the state.
The central BJP leadership has asked the state leadersto fan out to the districts and organise agitations and massmobilisations on issues the people are concerned about, beforethe Congress and Left Front capitalises on those problems, BJPsources said.
“People will see several agitations in differentassembly segments over local issues from November-Decemberonwards,” a BJP leader said, adding the party is also workingto plug the gaps in its organisational strength in somedistricts.
The ruling TMC, however, mocked the saffron partystarget of winning more than 200 seats in the state.
“As far as coming to power in West Bengal isconcerned, the BJP is still living in the fools paradise. Theparty will lose deposits in most of the seats,” TMC MP andspokesperson Saugato Roy said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Federal staff and is auto-published from a syndicated feed.)
