Kolkata: An internal assessment of the BJP has indicated that the nationalism model of politics will not work in West Bengal. The 2021 state assembly election results have proved it already. Now, the state unit of the saffron party has decided to deviate from the nationalist model and concentrate more on local issues such as unemployment, lack of industrial development and the like.
BJP sources said that the local issue model has worked in Assam which also went for polls this year with West Bengal. Earlier, this same local issue model worked wonders for BJP in Tripura. So, the saffron unit in West Bengal wants to replicate the Assam and Tripura models in West Bengal.
The party’s central high leadership has already given instructions to the state leadership on this count.
In the last assembly elections, BJP secured 38 percent votes in West Bengal. In West Bengal, Bengali voters account for 70 per cent of the total voters. But from the result analysis, it is clear that a major section of the Bengalis shied away from the saffron camp.
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“Although Jai Shree Ram slogans were chanted before the state assembly polls this year, it did not work out well. It seems that in West Bengal Goddess Kali and Goddess Durga are more popular in the state than Lord Rama. So the local issues will be of priority for us now,” said that state BJP leader who did not wish to be named.
Already, a team of IT professionals of BJP from Tripura and Assam has reached West Bengal. The teams will conduct surveys among the voters of West Bengal for the next three months. They will collect detailed information about Bengal’s culture, education system and industrial situation among others in the course of their survey. Accordingly, the party’s strategy in the state for the coming days will be decided.
Journalist, analyst and the writer of the book, “Mission Bengal: A saffron experiment,” Snigdhendu Bhattacharya feels that if not the nationalism model, BJP will surely continue with their Hindutya line in West Bengal in the coming days.
“This time too BJP played the Hindutva line in West Bengal considering they will not get the Muslim votes. So they pursued the Hindutva line. But at the same time in the election campaign this year they also highlighted the development issue also. But because of their hard Hindutva line, the Muslim votes this time consolidated in favour of Trinamool Congress."
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"In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Muslim votes got divided between Congress, Trinamool Congress and Left Front and BJP reaped benefits of those divisions in Muslim votes. But that did not happen in the 2021 polls. I personally feel that in the next three years BJP, besides other local issues, will continue to push their Hindutva line more aggressively in Bengal with the aim of uniting Hindu votes in their favour. That process has already started as BJP is trying to project this post-poll political violence more as communal violence. Even their focus on local issues will also have religious fervour,” Bhattacharya said.
