BJP failing to fill opposition space ceded by Congress, CPM in Bengal
‘The BJP leadership in Bengal is a compromised one and does not have a charismatic leader’.
The West Bengal unit of the BJP is failing to occupy the space of the opposition despite the “vacuum” created by the lack of public support for the CPM and the Congress, party functionaries in the Bengal unit of the BJP said.
“The current leadership of the BJP in Bengal is very loose and spineless. It does not have the capacity to build a mass movement against the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Neither does it take any strong decisions nor does it want anybody to take decisions. It has lost connect with the ground workers,” a Kolkatabased party functionary said.
The BJP had got 17.5% of the total vote share in West Bengal during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which dipped to 10.2% in the As- sembly elections held last year. That speaks volumes about the current dispensation of the BJP in the state.
After the arrest of two top TMC leaders by the CBI in connection with the Rose Valley chit fund scam, the TMC directly attacked the Prime Minister, burnt down several BJP party offices in the state and also attacked several state leaders, but despite that no strong reaction came from the party leadership in the state, the source added.
“Such kind of silence from the leadership only demoralises the booth level and ground workers. Today in Bengal, you would not see many persons wanting to go out for a rally which is being organised by the BJP, because they fear they would be attacked and the party would not be by their side,” another party functionary, who con- tested the Assembly elections, said.
Members of Parliament of the BJP from the state like Babul Supriyo and Roopa Ganguly are also not being able to do much in the state, while facing backlash from the ruling party. Progress in some areas of the North 24 Parganas district, which were steadily growing into a BJP bastion, has come to a halt with little or no presence of the BJP currently. According to BJP insiders, one of the major problems that the party is facing in the state is of inexperienced leaders and leaders with vested interests who have been taken into the core working committee of the party. “The BJP has taken in corrupt CPM and Congress leaders into the working committee and core group, who have their personal agendas and interests in the work- ing,” he added. He further said that, seeing this, several intellectuals who are ready to join the party are not being able to do so.
The 33 district organisations which the BJP has in the state, also fell silent to react to the attacks carried out on several of these district offices allegedly by TMC goons post demonetisation and the arrest of TMC leaders, because of the “lack of support” from their top leadership, several ground workers of the party said.
Another senior BJP leader of the state has also alleged that several youth leaders of the BJP as well as few district leaders have been colluding with the ruling TMC to garner patronage from the ruling party in the state.
“The BJP leadership in Bengal is a compromised one. There is no charismatic leader of our party in the state. We have slowly lost our ground force and with the current dispensation of the BJP in the state, we will never be able to counter the might of the TMC forces. We will need to work out differently,” the leader said.
The leader further added that Delhi needs to put some strong leader in Bengal. “Bengal needs a leader who understands the politics of Bengal independently, and the Centre needs to address this issue. We cannot have prabhaaris (state-in-charge) who do not understand the local language and flies in, in the morning, and flies out at night. We need to have fulltime prabhaaris who would stay here and connect with the ground workers; only then the organisation can become strong,” the leader said.
Despite the roars and thunders from within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena against each other, it is likely that the two parties will form an alliance during the coming local body elections to be held in Maharashtra next month. This week, the Maharashtra Election Commission announced polls to 10 municipal corporations, 25 zilla parishads and 283 panchyat samitis. Notable among them are cashflushed corporations like Mumbai and Thane. The Mumbai corporation is the richest in the country, and traditionally the stronghold of the Shiv Sena. But leaders from both parties have kept the cards about the future of the alliance close to their hearts as of now. Highly placed sources from within the BJP said that they have insisted to the Sena about giving the Mayor’s position to the party which has majority.
The sentiment from within both the parties is against the alliance. But if poll results from the last four rounds are anything to go by, even the BJP needs a little introspection. According to the data available till now, the BJP has won not more than 25% vote share and not more than 25% seats. According to the cumulative results, the Congress is a close second by winning 20% seats. The BJP has won 1,190 of the 4,704 municipal council seats in the state. The Shiv Sena is a distant fourth in the ranking of BJP, Congress, Nationalist Congress Party and Sena. It has won 612 municipal council seats till now. The Sena clearly doesn’t hold an upper hand anymore. The alliance will primarily depend on the Sena’s coming to terms with this fact, or its failure to do so. But it can also not be denied that the Sena has traditionally been strong in