Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

BJP has an edge over Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. Here are 7 reasons

Mamata Banerjee has lost the sense of invincibility she had earlier. And the public knows this.

Mamata Banerjee’s most important strength is her street-fighting ability, not governance. She won West Bengal for the first time in 2011 by beating the Left Front, which earlier ruled the streets, by repeated physical confrontations with the law and order machinery and the Left’s musclemen. As a woman, the Left Front found it difficult to take her on, given her willingness to risk life and limb on the streets, thus giving her a decisive psychological advantage in 2011 after several earlier electoral failures.

In 2021, the BJP made the fatal mistake of targeting her personally and bringing in Hindi-belt bravado, thus giving her an easy victory based on a massive minority vote (close to 30 percent of the electorate) and a substantial Hindu vote that did not consolidate behind her challenger. 

This time it could be different. Not that the BJP is home and dry – no such luck – but it is certainly building up momentum in its favour. One of the early pre-poll surveys, by IANS-Matrize, gives Mamata’s Trinamool Congress a clear win, with 155-170 seats in a 294-member West Bengal assembly. The BJP comes second with 100-115. In 2021 the BJP won only 77 seats. The other parties drew a near blank.

What is different this time? Many things.

First, in what would be called unforced errors in tennis, Mamata Banerjee has been fighting the wrong battle on the streets: the Election Commission. Whether it is the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which went without incident in many states, including Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Bihar, or the enforcement directorate’s raid on I-PAC (the Indian Political Action Committee which works with the Trinamool Congress on election strategy), Didi went for bare-knuckle fights. In the midst of the raid she barged in and took away some laptops which could have contained important data.

Now, the ED is livid, and seeking the Supreme Court’s help to restrain the West Bengal Chief........

© ThePrint