IS MAMATA WORRIED?

Why is Mamata Banerjee so worried before West Bengal goes to polls starting April 17, 2014? She looked very confident when the poll dates were announced in March. Her political ambitions were very clear. From Brigade Parade Ground rally in Kolkata, the pitch for Mamata Banerjee’s prime ministerial dreams went high. While Mahasweta Devi to the Shahi Imam of the Tipu Sultan Mosque gave the call for crowning Mamata with the throne of prime minister, the Bengal chief minister herself sounded the war cry, “Delhi Chalo”, in Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s style.  This was only in last January. Things have drastically changed in the last one and a half months.

Mamata had a calculation in mind. She knew Left was not in a position to turn back in this election and pose a threat to Trinamool Congress. Even though she was going to fight, for the first time, a four cornered battle with Congress, CPIM and BJP, she was confident that she would bag over 30 seats and emerge as the third largest party in the country after BJP and Congress. Jayalalitha, she thought, would be a close fourth. She was probably right in her calculations. With gradually diminishing percentage of vote share in Bengal since 2008 panchayat elections, the Left doesn't have much to take away in this election, except a few seats. Congress has been pushed to certain pockets like Murshidabad and Malda. They can win maximum two seats. And BJP has no role to play in Bengal with their two to three percent vote share. So Trinamool Congress will almost have a cakewalk. 

There was a visible trend in vote share. Earlier, Left won election after election as they held on to their vote bank and the opposition votes used to get divided, the reason why Mamata always tied up with either Congress or BJP to avert the division of votes. Going by the last elections, this trend has reversed. TMC’s vote share has got consolidated around 43 per cent and the opposition votes got divided with the Left holding to a major share of about 31 per cent, Congress at 10 percent and BJP at three. It made Trinamool Congress so confident that they didn't hesitate to go alone in the panchayat elections. The positive results of the rural body elections pushed Mamata’s dream to the next level.

Mamata Banerjee thought it to be the right time to fulfill her national ambition. First she wanted to turn All India Trinamool Congress into a true all India party, following the rules of the Election Commission, by securing either the requisite number of seats or vote share and secondly she wanted to put herself in the driver’s seat in national politics. Her call for a Federal Front and allying with anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare were attempts to bolster her campaign to that direction. Subsequently it got a jolt with Anna deserting her and the regional satraps refusing to show their cards so openly now. Mamata concentrated on Bengal. She wanted to maximize the number of seats from Bengal. On the other hand there were indications that Mamata might extend outside support to the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, if BJP falls short of numbers, in lieu of a financial package to Bengal, a long standing demand of Mamata Banerjee government.

Narendra Modi, in Kolkata rally, floated the idea of “dono hath mein ladoo”, Modi at the centre and Mamata at the state. He didn’t aggressively attack Mamata, probably, keeping a door open. But suddenly we saw Mamata going for all out attack on Modi. Initially, we thought it to be a Mamata-strategy to keep her minority vote bank in good faith. Now as the days go by, an aggressive Mamata is taking on Narendra Modi with strong words: “We don’t want to see a face of riot… Modi has blood on his hands…don’t vote for BJP, they are trying to divide Bengal… BJP is like seasonal bird... Gujarat model is no model, etc.” At times it seems BJP is the main opposition party in Bengal and Left is nowhere. Mamata is not as worried about Left as much as she is about BJP.

Trinamool leadership has realized that BJP is here to spoil their game in Bengal. The opinion polls are predicting that BJP vote share in Bengal is going to rise as high as 12 per cent in the coming election. The ground reality is not different. Now the question is where will this extra 9 to 10 per cent vote come from? Left vote is not going to dwindle any further. The core Left voters will vote for the Left candidates. BJP will eat up TMC’s vote. One can deny but the manufactured Modi-wave is working in Bengal, too, especially among the youth. The TMC supporter who voted for TMC in 2011 to throw the Left out of power may well go and vote for Modi in 2014. This trend is evident at the local level. Seats like Alipurduars, Darjeeling, Krishnanagar, Basirhat, Barasat, Dumdum, Howrah, Serampore, Asansol, Birbhum and some more have turned vulnerable. BJP may not win all these seats, but the Left candidates may sail through defeating the TMC candidates.

Earlier, the conservative TMC leaders were hoping to win at least 30 seats from Bengal. Now the optimist TMC leaders are predicting 22 to 25 seats in this changing situation. Anything less than 30 will be a face loss for Mamata. She is trying hard to walk the extra mile to thwart the Modi-magic, at least in West Bengal.

GAMEPLAN

Is it going to be an election over development or secularism? BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, who is seen to be the ‘maut ka saudagar’ by Congress party for 2002 Gujarat riots, is trying to project himself as the brand of new India, capturing the imagination of the youth, talking only of development and a united India, “Ek Bharat Sresth Bharat”. On the other hand the Congress party, which has ruled the country for last one decade and has been stung by a series of corruption related cases, is trying to divert the poll battle into a fight between secularism and communalism. They are constantly attacking Narendra Modi, who, they claim, is going to divide the country over religious lines and his track record can substantiate the claim. Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s meeting with the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, Sayeed Ahmed Bukhari, and the subsequent call of the Imam to vote for the Congress is a clear attempt to polarize the voters. At the same time it is nothing but to put development issue on the backburner.

Many thought that Narendra Modi will be the brand ambassador of aggressive Hinduttva of Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh. During the election campaign or from the time Modi has been nominated as BJP's PM candidate, we have not seen Modi speaking of Hinduttva or Ram Temple the way we thought he would. He has stuck to his development agenda, but now the drama is unfolding in front our eyes act by act. The picture is getting clearer.

We are now discussing BJP manifesto and accusing the party of playing soft Hinduttva by promising ‘construction of Ram Temple within the framework of our constitution’, implementation of uniform civil code for the gender equality, ban on cow slaughter, etc.  While releasing the manifesto, Modi again reiterated his call for developing the nation. Does it mean that BJP has kept the issues like Ram Temple and cow slaughter, uniform civil code just to keep the RSS happy and essence of BJP ideology alive? Do we conclude that Modi is going to be the mascot of development and religion is not there on his agenda?

The RSS-BJP gameplan is a bigger one. We can’t trust BJP or Modi at their face value. They are, for now, being opportunistic, like those so-called secular parties, as far as playing the Hinduttva card is concerned. If Narendra Modi was so focussed in his pitch for development, then why did he choose to contest the Varanasi seat in Uttar Pradesh along with Vadadora in his home state Gujarat? BJP officially says it would help them to do well in eastern UP and Bihar. It is true BJP is banking on these two states to take their tally beyond 200. How are they going to achieve it? If deploying Modi’s man Friday Amit Shah was the first part of the gameplan, putting Modi as the Varanasi candidate is the second part of it. BJP is playing Hiduttva card where it needs to. In other parts of the country, Modi’s development pitch is working fine. People are joining in the Modi wave thinking him to be the saviour of the country. The fact is to win more than 40 out of 80 seats in UP and at least 25 seats in Bihar, BJP has to give an extra push. The push is to polarize the votes.

UP can easily be divided on religious line. While Hindu sentiment through various symbols of Hindu mythology is very strong in the state, there is about 26 per cent Muslim population.  BJP is trying to encash it.  The Samajwadi Party, seen to be the messiah of the Muslim community, is on the backfoot. Recently, we have heard Congress candidate Imran Masood's speech and then came BJP leader Amit Shah’s ‘revenge’ remark. Both the speeches are just glimpses of what is happening in UP. This is exactly what BJP wants it to be (and probably SP wants too). The number of communal violence in UP has gone up from 118 in 2012 to 247 in 2013 including Muzaffarnagar.  

Narendra Modi in his speech during the rally in Varanasi last December, didn’t mention Ram Temple, but played with a mix of religious sentiments and his development mantra. He talked elaborately about how river Ganga needs to be cleaned up and how Congress government failed to do that. Modi is just allowing the polarization to happen with tacit support. His party felicitated two MLAs Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana who were accused in Muzaffarnagar riots just before Modi arrived in Agra rally last November. And finally ‘har har Modi’ slogan is being chanted in Varanasi which has a history of communal violence since 1990s. This is nothing but to assure the core voters of BJP and the stakeholders of Hinduttva that BJP and Modi are on the track. We will have to wait and see what Narendra Modi does when BJP comes to power with absolute majority. Will he go back to the parochial agenda of Hindu Nationalism or stick to his agenda of developing the nation without any religious overtone.