In Bengal, BJP to test Mamata Banerjee’s mettle on Sandesh Khali, corruption

Bengal polls look set to witness yet another political battle between PM Modi and Mamata Banerjee

Kolkata:

Another high-voltage political standoff between Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and its main challenger the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has come to an end and the battle lines have been drawn. West Bengal has 42 Lok Sabha seats, ranking third in India after Uttar Pradesh. and Maharashtra, are all up for grabs.

The elections to the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal will be held in seven phases from April 19 to June 1.

Even as Ms Banerjee chose to take the ‘Ekla Cholo Re’ path and the opposition India Bloc failed in Bengal, the state Congress is still keen to forge ties with the Left parties, which it has formally captured in the 2021 state polls. However, a formal alliance between the two parties in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections is yet to be announced.

The BJP, for its part, is likely to rely on its usual trump card, the popularity and image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while reaching out to voters in the state.

The BJP suffered a crushing defeat in the state polls, with the TMC restricting the party to just 77 seats in a furnished Assembly hall for 294 MPs. The BJP has struggled with widespread corruption under Ms Banerjee’s rule. Got a new life. Recently, TMC leaders were accused of land grabbing and sexual abuse of women in Sandeshkari, a humble village in the Sunderbans delta.

So, for all practical purposes, the Bengal polls look set to witness another naked political battle between Prime Minister Modi and Mamata, with the saffron brigade trying their best to upset the Trinamool apple cart by boosting the previous tally of 18. The seat was considered the party’s best showing yet, much to the chagrin of the state’s ruling establishment.

Contests in the state’s main three corners are likely to center on the following issues:

1. Corruption: The alleged widespread corruption in the Trinamool ranks is perhaps the most potent ammunition in the BJP’s arsenal and seems to have put the party in a difficult position politically. While Ms Banerjee calls the phenomenon nothing more than an “intra-party aberration”, senior TMC leaders are still languishing in jail for alleged recruitment scams in schools and civil institutions, irregular food distribution and even cross-border cattle smuggling .

2. Sandeshkhali and Women Voters: Organized violence erupted in early January when an ED team raided TMC strongman Shajahan Sheikh’s Sandeshkhali residence, which soon turned into villagers protesting against the leaders and women for their forced land grabbing and continued sexual assault on women. Atrocities. His associates. As the days passed and the protests snowballed, the TMC found itself saddled with the most terrible shame on the eve of polls: the potential loss of the trust of women voters. Ms Banerjee is believed to have always enjoyed the loyalty of the state’s women voters and Prime Minister Narendra Modi made it clear during his recent visit to the state that the Sandesh Khali issue will remain a fulcrum for the BJP polls.

3. Bohiragoto (outsider) tag: Three years ago, the TMC was seen as targeting the tried and tested agenda of the BJP in the state polls, and the ‘bohiragoto’ attack on BJP leaders in the country’s Hindi heartland now finds came up with a corollary: “Bengali haters”. “Jonogoner gorjon, Bangla birodhider bisarjan” (The cry of the people is to drive out those who hate Bengal), was the central slogan coined at the TMC mega rally at the Brigade Parade Ground on March 10 for the polls.

4. Central funds: The most consistent of all the issues on which the TMC hopes to gain votes from rural Bengal is withholding central funds for projects like MNREGS and PM Avaas Yojna. The TMC claimed that with the Centre’s taxes, the total receivables exceed Rs 100 crore, hampering the state’s development and causing financial hardship to the rural poor. While Ms Banerjee has started releasing MNREGS funds from the state coffers to waiting beneficiaries, her nephew Abhishek has challenged the BJP to hold a public debate on the issue and demand a speech on the subject. A white paper.

5. CAA: In order to cover up the possible adverse impact of the Sandeshkhali developments and promote damage control on corruption, Ms. Banerjee wasted no time in opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act, which the Center had implemented through notification rules earlier this week. Citizenship Amendment Act. The Trinamool supremo called the bill a “precursor to the NRC” and a “misleading humla for immigrants” and announced her intention to make the CAA one of her key election issues. Instead, the BJP hopes to reap political benefits from the bill in the run-up to the polls, especially in areas where Bengal’s Matua community is dominant.

6. Background theory: The “tacit understanding between Modi and Didi” theory, beloved by India’s left and Congress leaders, is buried deep beneath the political turmoil between the two rivals and is likely to be the country’s third Big political forces are coming to town together this election season. The Left and Congress are likely to bring the issue back to campaign center stage after the central agency’s alleged “delay” in the scam probe “keeps TMC top brass out of the police network”.

Apart from the above issues, both the TMC and the BJP are seeking to raise their voices on other issues that are temporarily dominating the political ecological space in Bengal. While the Trinamool may scream about “BJP using central institutions to intimidate its opposition” and “BJP’s divisive religion-based politics”, the saffron party is sure to highlight the law and order issues in the state, Mamata Banner Under the Kyrgyz regime, “democracy was stifled by politicizing the police and administration.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)