Bengal Panchayat Polls: Lessons For The BJP

The just-concluded panchayat polls in Bengal were marred by violence and rigging, but at the end of the day, what mattered most was that the Trinamool Congress won. And won massively. 

The Trinamool could not have achieved this scale of victory only through intimidation, threats, attacks, and rigging. 

The stark reality is that the Trinamool Congress is the undisputed ruler of Bengal and its primary challenger--the BJP--stands at a distant second. There is no denying the fact that an overwhelming majority of the people in rural Bengal have supported the Trinamool Congress. 

The BJP now needs to introspect and draw lessons from its performance in the panchayat polls. That is, if it plans to put up a credible performance in the Lok Sabha elections less than a year from now. 

Here are the lessons that should be drawn by the BJP:

• Organisational strength is of prime importance

The BJP lacks organisational muscle in Bengal. Despite repeated urgings by the party’s central leadership, the BJP state unit has failed to build an organisation from the grassroots level in most places. 

The BJP in Bengal suffered depletion in its cadre base after the 2021 Assembly polls primarily because the party leadership--both state and central--failed to stand up for and protect party cadres from widespread attacks on them by Trinamool goons. 

That led to a huge exodus from the BJP’s ranks--thousands of workers joined the Trinamool to save themselves and their families, or simply dissociated themselves from the party. The state leadership has not been able to win back their confidence. 

Except perhaps for Suvendu Adhikari and just a few others, none of the state leaders have displayed the courage and ability to take on the Trinamool.

Most of the present set of state-level leaders of the party do not inspire much confidence and lack the qualities and drive to lead the party. 

This calls for decisive intervention by the party central leadership which has to set clear goals for the state leaders, monitor their performance and take strong action in case goals are not met. 

If the BJP has to take on the Trinamool in future, it has to match the latter’s organisation muscle. And the BJP leadership should not be circumspect when party workers face attacks by Trinamool cadres. 

• Trinamool’s campaign needs to be countered aggressively

The Trinamool was successful in convincing the rural masses that the Union Government was denying Bengal its due by stopping disbursal of funds for many welfare schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Away Yojana (PMAY) and the MNREGA. 

The BJP failed to counter this false campaign by pointing out that funds are not being disbursed because of corruption in implementation of these schemes in Bengal. 

The Union Government, which ought to have issued a white paper on why disbursal of funds had been stopped, remained silent. 

The Trinamool could, thus, cover up its misdeeds and corruption with the loud but false allegation of ‘discrimination against Bengal’ by the BJP government at the Centre.

• Only a positive poll campaign will work

The BJP’s campaign was largely centred around attacking Mamata Banerjee and her nephew (Abhishek). 

While the party did raise issues of corruption dogging the Trinamool--like the cash-for-jobs scam in the schools, the cattle smuggling scam and the illegal coal mining scam--it failed to do so aggressively and convincingly. 

The BJP’s campaign was largely negative. It failed to offer a roadmap for the development of the state, and especially for improving the rural economy. 

It is no secret that people in rural Bengal are very poor--agriculture offers subsistence livelihood and unemployment and under-employment is rife. A huge number of people have to migrate to other parts of the country in search of jobs. 

The BJP could have come out with a detailed manifesto on what it plans to do to enhance rural incomes, provide employment and stem the migration of lakhs of people to other states. It could have campaigned positively on what it plans to do to improve the lives of the rural folks. 

Negative campaigns do not work, and the BJP is one party which ought to have known this. After all, it has been winning Lok Sabha polls and elections in other states on the basis of its positive campaigns. 

• Performance of BJP’s elected representatives has been lacklustre

Save for a very few, the performance of BJP’s 70-odd MLAs (it won 77 seats but seven of its legislators associated themselves with the Trinamool) in the state Assembly and in their constituencies has been lacklustre. 

Similarly, many of the party’s 18 Lok Sabha MPs have not met the expectations of their constituents. People in general have been unhappy with their performances. 

That is why the BJP registered a considerable decline in public support in many of its earlier strongholds. 

BJP lost in the backyards of many of its MPs, including Union Ministers, and MLAs. That happened because of the non-performance of these elected representatives of the BJP.

Most of these MLAs and MPs are first-timers and have little idea of what is expected of them. They lack guidance and inspiration, and most of them have little or no contact with the people they ought to represent. 

This should be a cause for grave concern for the BJP leadership. But the leadership itself has to share the blame for this since it failed to offer proper guidance to the MLAs and MPs. 

The Lok Sabha polls are just over seven months away. That’s too short a time to get the MLAs and MPs to start performing. But the party leadership can counter the severe shortcomings of its elected representatives by framing a Bengal-specific campaign baked on clean and good governance. 

• Infighting among state leaders has to end

There’s no denying the fact that the BJP in Bengal is a divided house. While most leaders have no grassroots connect and cannot even mobilise a few hundred people on their own, they busy themselves in undercutting those who work on the ground and have mass appeal. 

Petty egos and personality clashes among state-level leaders has triggered acute factionalism within the party ranks and has left a huge number of dedicated party functionaries completely disillusioned 

The BJP central leadership has to intervene right away and get all state leaders to work unitedly. The central leadership would do well to banish egotistical leaders without grassroots connect, mass appeal and charisma to the sidelines and give a free hand to leaders like Suvendu Adhkari to steer the state unit of the party. 

• Ensure corruption cases against Trinamool functionaries are steered to their logical end

Merely levelling allegations of corruption against Trinamool leaders based on probes by central investigative agencies is not enough. The Union Government must ensure that those probes are taken to their logical conclusion, strong chargesheets are filed and at least some of the Trinamool functionaries are convicted and sent to jail. 

Probes by central agencies into various scams perpetrated by Trinamool leaders cannot go on interminably. 

Even when chargesheets have been filed, like in the Saradha scam, court hearings are dragging on and a closure is nowhere in sight. The Union Government has to move the judiciary to fast-track these cases and hand out stiff sentences to the accused, which include top Trinamool leaders. 

If that does not happen, Mamata Banerjee’s charge that the Union Government is using the CBI and ED to harass her party functionaries will gain credibility. 

If the CBI and ED possess strong evidence against Trinamool leaders, including Abhishek Banerjee, for their involvement in scams, it has to act swiftly against them and take them into custody, as has been done with a few Trinamool leaders like party strongman Anubrata Mondal and former minister Partha Chatterjee. 

These are a few major steps that the BJP needs to take immediately to notch up a respectable tally of seats in the Lok Sabha polls next year. The BJP’s lacklustre performance in the just-concluded panchayat polls should serve as a wake up call for the party.