Bengal readies for cliffhanger in 10 seats

KOLKATA: In Bengal, you can’t miss the BJP flags. Not too long back, they were hardly visible, but in this election, they are fluttering away in every constituency – a bold statement in a state where it won only two seats in 2014.

True, Trinamool flags still outnumber the saffron ones, but in this former Left citadel, BJP flags far outnumber CPM and Congress ones, a clear indication that the party is in for a serious fight this time round.

The saffron party leadership claims it is focusing on about 20 of the 42 constituencies in the state. With the Left and Congress having withered in Bengal, BJP is essentially hoping to tap into anti-incumbency and mop up all the anti-Mamata votes.

But, BJP, which is new to Bengal, has one major problem: it doesn’t have too many recognisable candidates or leaders. Even BJP election managers, halfway into the polls, are still unfamiliar with the names of candidates as well as constituencies. To run the last leg of its campaign, BJP has brought in its senior RSS leader, Sunil Deodhar, credited with delivering Tripura to the party by ousting a strong Left regime.

Even Trinamool insiders agree that BJP will end up second in the state, that was ruled for 34 years by the Left parties before Mamata Banerjee won in 2011. Even during the Left rule, Bengal had a fair share of Congress support in pockets.

The party is in a close fight with Trinamool in at least 10 seats: Raiganj, Darjeeling, Alipurduar in the north, Malda Uttar, Malda Dakshin, Asansol in central Bengal, and Barrackpore, Krishnanagar, Basirhat and Kolkata Uttar in the south.

With a four-cornered contest in the north and central parts of Bengal, where both Congress and Left have some presence, BJP hopes to benefit from a split in the anti-Mamata votes, while in the southern seats, which are Trinamool bastions, it is more of a direct battle with Mamata Banerjee’s party.

BJP is banking on infighting within Trinamool in many constituencies. While Mamata Banerjee has tried to address the factional feuds in her party by fielding outsiders or new entrants like celebrities — actors Mimi Chakraborty (Jadavpur) and Nusrat Jahan (Basirhat) — BJP leaders claim the disgruntled Trinamool cadre are ready to help the saffron party as it is the strongest opponent in the state today, to send out a warning to its leadership before the next assembly polls slated for 2021.

BJP is also banking on the “578 companies of central forces to be deployed across the state for every booth to ensure peaceful elections”, according to the party’s poll managers.

BJP won just two seats in Bengal – Darjeeling and Asansol – out of 42 in 2014 when the Narendra Modi wave swept the rest of the country. But, its vote share went up to 17% from just 4% in the state polls in 2011.

With its stronghold states in the Hindi heartland having delivered a saturated mandate in 2014, and faced with an obvious anti-incumbency factor after five years of Modi rule, BJP is looking to garner support from regions where it is a relatively new entity, compared to tried and tested parties like Congress and the Left Front in Bengal. Apart from Bengal, BJP is looking at Odisha to make up for its potential loss in the heartland.