Kolkata: The 2019 Lok Sabha election results in West Bengal came as a surprise to many with the BJP emerging as the strongest opposition party in the state bagging 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats, reducing the ruling Trinamool Congress to 22. While the Congress managed to win two Lok Sabha seats, the CPI(M)- led Left Front ended with a zero.
Indications of the BJP emerging as the principal opposition party in West Bengal were there in the 2018 polls for the three- tier panchayat system in the state leaving behind the Congress and the Left Front who contested separately then unlike in the rural civic body polls this year. However, none thought that the saffron camp would put up such a good performance in 2019 bagging 18 Lok Sabha seats.
At that point several interpretations surfaced of this meteoric rise of the BJP. One argument was that several ardent Trinamool Congress voters voted in favour of the: “Lotus” symbol out of anger against the ruling party because of the massive violence unleashed by it. The second argument was that several dedicated voters of the CPI(M), with a feeling that the party they support will not be able to protect them from the ruling party’s onslaught, opted for the BJP with the hope of getting protection from the strongest party nationally.
Now with the Trinamool Congress’s thumping victory in the 2023 rural civic body polls, the question is whether the BJP will be able to hold its own in the state in the big battle of 2024 or will the sky over Bengal be all “green” in favour of the ruling Trinamool Congress.
Trinamool Congress national general secretary and Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee seems to be elated over the results in the 2023 rural civic body polls. Ridiculing the slogan of “No vote to Mamata” raised by the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari, Banerjee said that it is “now vote for Mamata”.
On the other hand, Adhikari has claimed that the results are in no way a reflection of the public pulse considering the massive violence unleashed by the ruling party claiming a total of 42 lives till Wednesday afternoon. “People will give a befitting reply to the Trinamool Congress as they did in 2019, since the Lok Sabha polls will be under a blanket security cover and in multiple phases, where the ruling party hooligans would not be able to unleash the same violence.”
State Congress president and Lok Sabha member Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and CPI(M) central committee member Sujan Chakraborty, both felt that the 2024 Lok Sabha polls will neither be a cakewalk for the Trinamool Congress nor for the BJP . Both felt that the results of the civic body polls prove that the performance of both the Left Front and the Congress, being able to put up a united fight was much better than all the past elections since the 2018 panchayat polls. They also claimed that whatever resistance was built up against the ruling party in 2023 was from Congress, Left Front and their associate All India Secular Front and not from the BJP.
Now, there are two sets of arguments about the BJP’s prospects in West Bengal for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. To an extent the logic of the Leader of the Opposition is correct that aggrieved voters becoming victims of poll- violence in 2023 might vote in bulk against the ruling party to teach the latter a lesson. Secondly as perceived by many political analysts the pressure from the central agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate on the Trinamool Congress leaders will undoubtedly increase in the coming days with more influential leaders coming in the line of fire. In that case, it will be more difficult for the ruling party to handle the dual agency and poll pressure at the same time.
However, the counterargument is that the results of the 2023 rural civic body polls are a clear indication that both the Left Front and the Congress have not only been able to arrest the erosion in their vote banks in the last few elections but have also been able to revive them substantially. Political observers feel that it is now a foregone conclusion that the Congress and the Left Front will be having a seat-sharing agreement in the 2024 polls. The more the Congress and the Left Front regain strength, the more will be division in the opposition and the more the situation will be difficult for the BJP and beneficial for the Trinamool Congress.
–IANS