‘Operation Vijay’, also typical of Tamil Nadu, shows that the new star on the horizon has disrupted the bipolar nature of Tamil Nadu’s politics. After the expected third-term win, Himanta Biswa Sarma’s stock further rises. Keralam is also about whether Shashi Tharoor gets to lead the government there. The real newsmaker in the Assembly election results, inarguably, is West Bengal – powered by the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah phenomenon.
From no representation in 2011, when Mamata Banerjee was voted to power, to 77 seats in 2021 elections, to the tsunami in these elections, the BJP’s rise has been stupendous.
After the abrogation of Article 370 – when it was said the party realised Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s vision of the complete integration of J&K with the Indian Union, the BJP’s rise in Mookerjee’s home state is particularly satisfying for the BJP. Anga, Banga, Kalinga will indeed now have BJP governments.
In an election that also got contentious due to a ‘yes-SIR, no-SIR’ debate, and then also saw a record voter turnout – the voters were not willing to speak out, such was the environment -- the resentment ran deep against the Trinamool dispensation, as the results showed. In election rallies, the sentiment found a voice in the minority appeasement charge against the Mamata Banerjee government. State BJP leader Suvendu Adhikary put it clearly when he said that a Hindu consolidation helped the BJP. Other State BJP leaders spoke of the dawn of Ram Rajya.
Charges of nepotism, corruption, law and order, lack of industrial development, and witch-hunting of political rivals, were often levelled against the Mamata government. The significance of women votes, increased wages for government employees, the promise of a double-engine government, have also been talked about in the context of the BJP’s quest for Poriborton. Politically, the electoral reverse for the TMC in West Bengal is particularly significant because Mamata Banerjee was once also positioned as a rallying point for the Opposition.
During the election rallies, it was also said that the government, under the Mamata regime, was not run from the secretariat, but from the party headquarters. The blurring of the line between popular politics and policy architecture was visible on a number of occasions in the state. To give an example, the state OBC list that the government came up with, was heavily populated by communities said to be loyal to the ruling party. The said OBC list was eventually shot down by the High Court.
Nationally speaking, two facts stand out vis-à-vis the BJP. One, there is no star campaigner like Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. He has been key, and indispensable, for the BJP’s electoral fortunes. Two, Union Home Minister Amit Shah remains key and indispensable to the organisation – as was witnessed, yet again, in the state, where he led from the front.
It’s then interesting to see how PM Modi has become the most influential figure in the BJP’s history – scripting the party’s rise, steering the government, now into its third term.
For a political movement or a social movement to sustain, three elements are key – ideology, organisation, face of the movement. If Hindutva became the larger philosophy, the RSS-BJP synergy took care of orgaisational needs, Narendra Modi became the face of the movement (well before 2014, when he was elected as the Prime Minister, and he was serving Gujarat as CM, he was widely regarded as the tallest BJP CM).
In addition to these key elements, big ideas came to be associated with governance, too. Take the Viksit Bharat @ 2047 vision, for instance, that first found a mention in PM’s 2022 Independence Day speech. In BJP election speeches, too, then, there was place for “Shonar Bangla”, “Viksit Bengal” or Viksit Assam”.
Addressing party workers at the party headquarters on the election results, PM Modi called them historic, unprecedented.
In the larger framework of election results, West Bengal indeed stands out. From Mookerjee to Modi, the state stands as witness as national politics is marked by a new churn, seeing the rise and rise of the BJP. |
