Uncertain times: BJP state president Dilip Ghosh | Salil Bera
DAYS AFTER THE TRINAMOOL Congress won the West Bengal elections, former state BJP vice president Chandra Kumar Bose wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, party president J.P. Nadda and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat. Only Bhagwat replied, saying that Bose’s concerns would be discussed at the proper forums.
Bose had been removed as vice president last year, but many in the BJP still hold him in high regard. After the results on May 2, several party workers reached out to him, asking him to protect them from Trinamool cadres. “They told me this was not the Indian freedom struggle for which they would retaliate and die,” Bose told THE WEEK. “This was just an election. I told them I was no longer in the state committee. But they felt that I had a good relationship with the prime minister. I decided to not let them down and wrote a confidential letter to the top four.”
He added that he wrote it as he felt the BJP had lost an opportunity in Bengal. “[We] lost because of a series of mistakes by the party’s leadership in Bengal,” he said. “I have explained [this] to those who matter in the party.”
In his letter to Modi, Bose wrote: “I suggest the BJP practise an inclusive ideology to embrace all communities and different strata of society. The TMC’s appeasement politics cannot be countered by polarisation.”
Bose said the BJP failed to win over the intellectual and middle-class Hindu voters. “The BJP could not win any of the seats in and around Kolkata as we failed to feel the pulse of the people,” he wrote. “To capture the Bengali majority vote, the BJP must project a leader who would invoke the inclusive ideology of national icons like Swami Vivekananda, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das.”
At the state level, the BJP has been criticised for its missteps in dealing with the Trinamool government. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, notwithstanding allegations that she turned a blind eye to the attacks on BJP workers, took decisive steps like accepting the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme (which she had blocked for the past five years) and sent the names of 65 lakh beneficiaries to Delhi. Within 48 hours, the Centre sent the money to farmers’ accounts. However, instead of showing support, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh asked Modi to suspend the transfer as the money, he alleged, was being deposited into Trinamool leaders’ accounts.
Ghosh faced backlash on social media, with Trinamool leaders accusing the BJP of playing “dirty” politics. “They are unable to accept the defeat, and are indulging in bad politics,” said Trinamool leader Kalyan Banerjee.
Ghosh was unavailable for comment, but BJP state vice president Biswapriya Roychowdhury said he had taken up the matter with the former. “Dilip da said he never asked the Centre to stop giving money to farmers,” he said. “He said the Centre should not trust the state government’s list. It is full of beneficiaries who are not at all farmers or are big farmers. The same was done in the case of cyclone (Amphan) victims.”
Bose, however, said the people of Bengal did not buy the argument that the Centre needed the state’s nod to help people. “When Aadhaar cards have been made universal, the Centre can deposit whatever amount it can into the accounts of people. Why is a friendly state government needed for this?” he said.
The BJP was also criticised for the apparent reprieve its leaders got in the Narada bribery case. The CBI recently arrested four Trinamool leaders—Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad Hakim, Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee—but did not go after Trinamool turncoats Mukul Roy and Suvendu Adhikari, who were also accused in the case, with the same vigour.
“[This] has given ammo to Mamata,” said Bose. “She is getting away with ruthless atrocities on BJP workers just because we have made mistakes that have allowed her to gain sympathy. We have played into her hands.”
He said he was miffed with some leaders and Central ministers for painting the post-poll violence with a communal brush. “It was merely political violence,” he said.
The political violence has reportedly rendered thousands of BJP workers homeless. Based on the report by a Union home ministry team that travelled across the state, the ministry has not yet pulled out 105 companies of Central forces deployed for election security. The legality of their extended deployment is now being debated. “Law and order being a state subject, the Central forces can only supplement the state forces,” said an IPS officer who did not want to be named. “The state police can use such forces only during internal disturbance. We do not think there is any such disturbance.”
The Centre can have a say in law and order only if it applies Article 355 of the Constitution, said the officer. The Union home ministry has said that the forces would be in the state till the pandemic is over. Many have questioned what the pandemic has to do with law and order.
Sources said that Dhankhar had also sent a report to the Centre and the president, inviting criticism from the Trinamool for his “political” intervention.
At the party level, Adhikari, the leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly, has been asked to bring back the party workers displaced by the violence. “He is coordinating with district magistrates along with 75 of our MLAs,” said Roychowdhury. After the party workers return, the BJP would press for punishment for those who attacked its cadres. The state BJP apparently feels that it has to use such promises to hold on to its workers.
Several Trinamool defectors, including former MLAs Sonali Guha and Sarala Murmu, have already shown interest in returning to the fold. The BJP has said that while some leaders could return to the Trinamool, it would retain the cadres at any cost.
Several voices in the Trinamool, however, have objected to the possible inclusion of these leaders. “Such people should not be taken back. We have told Mamata this,” said a senior TMC leader.
However, Mamata could take them back after a cooling-off period. Many defectors, said sources, are in constant touch with her.