Attack On ED Team: Why BJP’s Top Leadership Needn’t Be Circumspect About Taking Strong Action Against Mamata Banerjee

Last week’s attack on Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials to scuttle a raid on a Trinamool Congress strongman wasn’t the first such instance in Bengal. 

And it won’t be the last as well, given the history of how BJP’s top leadership has dealt with a wayward Bengal government. 

Friday morning’s shameful attack on ED officials who had gone to Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas neighbouring Kolkata to search the house of local Trinamool strongman Shahjahan Sheikh did not happen out of the blue.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her ministers, as well as top leaders of the Trinamool Congress, have been ranting against the EC and CBI and asking people to “resist raids” by the central probe agencies. 

The Trinamool Congress stands guilty of using strong-arm tactics to intimidate Opposition leaders, activists and supporters, and unleashing political violence in the state. 

The ruling party in Bengal is embroiled in corruption, and the state has been rocked by many scams. Many of its leaders are behind bars and many more are under the scanner of probe agencies. 

All this amounts to a miscarriage of governance in Bengal. And also an utter failure of the state administration to act impartially and as per the law of the land. 

This makes Bengal a fit and urgent case for Central intervention. But that has not happened so far. 

Prime Minister Modi, it is well known, is a stickler for rules and Constitutional norms. That is why, despite a growing clamour for Central intervention in Bengal, the Union Government has preferred to remain passive. 

New Delhi’s reluctance to crack the whip on Bengal and at least ask the state government to stick to the ‘raj dharma’ stems its wariness about the political fallout of any such move. 

The top BJP leadership believes that any punitive action against Mamata Banerjee will make her a ‘martyr’ to the people of Bengal and enable her to garner the ‘sympathy vote’. 

The BJP leadership believes that the people of Bengal will eventually get fed up with the misrule and corruption of the Trinamool and withdraw their support to Mamata Banerjee and her party. It is better to wait for that to happen organically instead of taking any action that will help her project herself as a victim. 

But this reasoning is flawed. The more the Union Government holds back its horses and allows a free rein to Mamata Banerjee, the more powerful she becomes. 

Attacks on ED officials and central forces, and the absence of punitive action against the state, is showcased by her party as New Delhi’s impotence to act against the Trinamool. 

Mamata Banerjee’s credentials as one who can stand up to and cock a snook at the Union Government gets bolstered by New Delhi’s inaction. That makes her a bigger hero in the eyes of the people of Bengal. 

The BJP central leadership would do well to chart the trajectory of Mamata Banerjee’s rise in Bengal. She became powerful by taking on the powerful CPI(M)-led Left Front that had a vice-like grip on power for 34 years. 

Banerjee did not shy away from challenging the Left’s might in Bengal. The Left tried its best, through its muscle-power, to defeat her. 

Mamata Banerjee ultimately unseated the Left from power because she was seen as the only person bold and brave enough to challenge the Left. She fought the Left tooth and nail and that bolstered her image. 

The BJP is right in its premise that Mamata Banerjee’s image has taken a severe beating because of the many scams and corruption charges faced by her party leaders, including her nephew Abhishek Banerjee. 

People of Bengal are fed up with Trinamool’s corruption and its rent-seeking leaders. The doles that Mamata Banerjee hands out are not enough to douse public anger. 

But the people of Bengal do not view the BJP as a party strong enough to take on Mamata Banerjee.

It is important to correct this perception. There are two ways of doing so. 

One is for the state unit of the party to battle the Trinamool in Bengal’s streets and lanes. But the state unit is riddled with factionalism and except for Suvendu Adhikari, none of the other BJP leaders in the state can claim any mass following of their own.

The other, and only, alternative is for the Union Government to crack the whip on the Mamata Banerjee government. Punitive action against the Trinamool government for its many misdeeds will demonstrate to the people of Bengal that the BJP leadership has the stomach to challenge Mamata Banerjee in her turf. 

And that is what is going to get the BJP votes.