BJP’S nat’l leader gambit fails
Deeksha Bhardwaj
NEW DELHI: BJP FIELDED PROMINENT CANDIDATES IN THE FORM OF
FOUR MPS: SWAPAN DASGUPTA, LOCKET CHATTERJEE, BABUL SUPRIYO AND NISITH PRAMANI Biswas in Tollygunj, lost by over 50,000 votes.
The BJP also fielded actors Tanushree Chakraborty from Shyampur, Anjana Basu from Sonarpur Dakshin, Payal Sarkar from Behala Purba and Yash Dasgupta from Chanditala assembly constituency. All four lost to TMC candidates.
Lahiri, who contested against TMC’S Sekhar Dasgupta in the Balurghat constituency and the relatively low-profile Pramanik, who was up against two-term assembly candidate Udayan Guha, in Dinhata were the only ones to dey the trend.
“There was a clear strategy that the BJP used that has not paid dividends,” said political analyst Sandeep Shastri. “The party did not have prominent Bengali faces, so it adopted multiple strategies to counter that. Whether it was by inducting leaders from Trinamool Congress, such as Suvendhu Adhikari, or using leaders within in its fold from the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.”
“The party also knew that it would need such people to take on leadership roles in case it managed to form the government,” he added. After all, home minister Amit Shah repeatedly emphasised tat his part would win at least 200 seats. In the end, it was the TMC that won 213 seats as of the Election Commission’s trends as of 7pm.
Political analyst and CSDS’ former director Sanjay Kumar said the BJP made a very careful choice in fielding current Lok Sabha MPS.
“But this has not been received very well by the people of West Bengal,” he said. “It would have been different if they had resigned and contested. Their claims of working for the people seemed contradictory to them giving up their central ministerial portfolios and their status as MPS that could be leveraged to help the people. The people of West Bengal have asserted that they cannot be taken for granted.”
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From Swapan Dasgupta to Locket Chatterjee to Babul Supriyo, the Bharatiya Janata Party parachuted national leaders into the poll fray in West Bengal, not so much for lack of local candidates (with the defections from the Trinamool Congress, there were too many in fact) but to put forth its strongest contenders. The plan seems to have spectacularly failed, with all three leaders losing to the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress in the state.
The BJP decided to field prominent candidates in the form of four parliamentarians, Dasgupta, Chatterjee, Supriyo and Nisith Pramanik for the polls. It also put forth as a candidate, renowned economist Ashok Lahiri, former Chief Economic Advisor to the government of India and a member of the 15th finance commission. The party’s strategy, say experts, was an attempt to boost its chances in the state.
Swapan Dasgupta, a former member of Rajya Sabha, who quit the upper house to contest against the TMC’S Ramendu Sinharay in Tarakeswar constituency, lost by more than 7,000 votes.
Lok Sabha member Locket Chatterjee, who contested in Chunchur, lost to TMC candidate Asit Mazumder by nearly 12,000 votes and union minister Babul Supriyo, who was up against Bengal minister Aroop