The Bharatiya Janata Party’s defeat in West Bengal last month shook many. How could it be, despite a slew of TMC leader defecting to the BJP, that the saffron party lost the polls? While it would be safe to say that the acceptance of any tom, dick and harry from the TMC camp into the saffron fold cost BJP dearly, the nationalist party is now not being able to keep its flock together in the politically volatile state. As such, while the BJP most definitely suffered a shocking defeat on result day last month, it has been losing in West Bengal ever since as well.
Dipendu Biswas, who had switched sides after his name did not feature in the TMC’s candidate list for the assembly polls, has expressed his desire to return to the state’s ruling party. Biswas said he regretted his “wrong decision” to join the BJP camp and said it was “taken in a moment of depression”. Biswas is the most recent leader currently in the BJP’s fold to have expressed a desire to embrace the TMC once again.
Earlier, in a purportedly emotional letter to Mamata, Sonali Guha had apologised for leaving the TMC to join the saffron party. In the letter, the four-time legislator from Satgachhia in South 24 Parganas district said, “The way a fish cannot stay out of water, I will not be able to live without you, Didi. I seek your forgiveness and if you don’t forgive me, I won’t be able to live. Please allow me to come back, and spend the rest of my life in your affection.”
There are others who are believed to have expressed their interest in re-joining the TMC. They include the likes of Sarala Murmu, Amal Acharya, etc. Reports also suggest Rajib Banerjee, a minister in Banerjee’s government till weeks before the poll is contemplating a return to the Ma, Mati, Manush party. Trinamool spokesperson Kunal Ghosh was quoted by NDTV as saying, “Not only leaders, seven-to-eight winning MLAs and 3-4 sitting MPs of the BJP have expressed their wish to join the Trinamool Congress.”
“But we have to honour the sentiments of party cadres, too. These leaders left the party just before elections and the workers and leaders managed to win the election under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee,” Kunal Ghosh added.
TFI has already explained how the biggest loss for the saffron party came from the turncoat leaders, very few of whom could score a victory. As per a report by Aajtak, 16 of the TMC leaders who switched over to BJP before the election lost the assembly seat. Moreover, out of the four Member of the Parliaments whom BJP had fielded for the assembly election – Swapan Dasgupta from the Tarkeshwar seat, Babul Supriyo from the Tollygunge seat, Locket Chatterjee from Chuchura seat, Nisith Pramanik from Dinhata seat – all except Pramanik lost.
This shows that there was much more anti-incumbency against the individual candidates than the CM of the state, Mamata Banerjee. Prashant Kishore very cleverly carried out an overhaul and weeded out the unpopular incumbents from TMC and gave tickets to young grassroots workers. BJP needs to introspect on these factors because its voter base is very sensitive towards issues like corruption, ideology, clear image etc.
If losing the election was not enough, the BJP is also losing the larger battle of Bengal ever since results were declared last month. The BJP cannot have among its ranks leaders who are simply drooling over the prospect of being accepted by Mamata Banerjee into the TMC fold once again. This trend reflects very badly on the BJP – and sends out the message that Bengal’s leaders are convinced the saffron party cannot possibly reconstruct the momentum it did for the recent assembly polls anytime in the near future.
The party needs to build an organizational structure with the help of RSS, especially in urban areas like Kolkata and Kolkata suburban districts which have a large number of constituencies and where it performed very badly.