OPINION | Mamata Banerjee steps up the attack on BJP leadership to safeguard her electoral cushion

Mamata’s no-holds-barred assault went on and on and was telecast live.

There is a lot more to Mamata Banerjee’s abnormal, groundbreaking sloganeering against Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and their party in the West Bengal legislative assembly on September 4 than meets the eye.

She yelled and screamed at Modi-Shah as never before. She bombarded the Prime Minister with the choicest slurs: vote chor, gaddi chhor (vote thief, step down) and asobbho (uncivilised) -- and condemned the Sangh Parivar as dalals (agents) of the British during the freedom struggle. Mocking India’s foreign policy under Modi, she charged: “At times, he is falling at the feet of US, sometimes at the feet of Russia, China and Israel. He is selling off the country and its honour. He must quit as he is incapable of running India.”

Mamata’s no-holds-barred assault went on and on and was telecast live. Mamata’s direct attack on Modi was so atypical of her that it rattled the BJP’s national leadership. The Anand Bazar Patrika reported that a puzzled BJP president, J. P. Nadda immediately telephoned Suvendu Adhikari, leader of opposition, for his take and asked for a video recording so that the party could decipher the unprecedented onslaught and strike back.

Four reasons for the unprecedented aggression

There are several reasons for Mamata’s dramatic, eyeball-grabbing, ear-piercing performance in the Bengal House last week.

The first is Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). As one of the country’s tallest opposition leaders and a Prime Ministerial candidate in her own right, Mamata badly needed to position and project herself as no less anti-Modi than Rahul Gandhi, Tejashwi Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav and M. K. Stalin who had stood together in an open jeep in Bihar the previous week shouting the slogan of the moment – vote chor, gaddi chhor – targeting Modi. She wanted to send a clear signal that although she didn’t join the Gandhi-led Vote Adhikar Yatra in Bihar, she is as staunchly anti-Modi as the other big guns of the INDIA bloc.

Secondly, Mamata had no option but to take her Modi-bashing to an altogether new level on September 4 to match Rahul’s scathing remarks on September 1 in Patna where the Congress Party leader announced at the conclusion of the Vote Adhikar Yatra that he would soon “detonate a Hydrogen Bomb to expose vote chori and after that Modi will not be able to show his face to the country”.

In another dig at Modi, Rahul said in Patna that even in China and US people wanted Modi to step down due to vote chori allegations – and Mamata obviously had to measure up. Hence, she raised the pitch -- and the intensity of her attack on Modi obviously made people sit up.

Thirdly, Mamata trained her guns on Modi like never before to atone publicly for sending political lightweights like Yusuf Pathan and Lalitesh Tripathi to Patna on September 1 to represent the Trinamool Congress at what was essentially an anti-Modi gathering of opposition forces. She wanted to expiate her blunder. Pathan and Tripathi told the gathering in Gandhi Maidan that they were representing Mamata and Abhishek Banerjee, but nobody was fooled. The INDIA bloc rightly took it as an insult and Mamata, who has obviously realised her folly, decided to make amends in her own way by replicating what the INDIA bloc leaders did in Bihar – slam and hammer Modi in the Bengal assembly.

Fourthly, Mamata has to periodically target Modi to dispel a widely held perception that there is a tacit understanding between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP. Didi has fuelled this perception – right or wrong -- by unexpectedly going soft on Modi and the RSS at times. Not too long ago, she said that Shah – and not Modi – is misusing the CBI, ED and NIA to target opposition leaders as these agencies report to the Home Minister! Such inexplicable remarks leave a big question mark.

Electoral calculations ahead of 2026 assembly polls

Even as Mamata fights Modi, there are too many instances of her defending Modi-RSS. The Congress Party and the Left Front keep alleging that the CBI and ED summons to Abhishek are just a mock drill and an eyewash to fool the public. They say that Trinamool Congress, which was once a BJP ally, hasn’t snapped all ties with the Sangh Parivar. Other opposition parties too doubt Mamata’s commitment to INDIA. This perception compels Mamata to mount attacks on Modi from time to time to salvage her image.

Lastly, any criticism of Modi is music to Muslim ears. And undeniably, the stronger the criticism the more pleased Muslims are. Mamata knows that the easiest way of retaining her Muslim vote-bank is by vehemently attacking Modi, Shah and the Sangh Pativar. It’s like paying lip service to Muslims without doing any concrete and substantive – like giving them government jobs, loans to fund business ventures, scholarships for students or ordering civic bodies to treat Hindu and Muslim localities at par for municipal services.

Mamata is eyeing en masse Muslim vote next year as in previous elections to defeat the BJP. The Muslim community, comprising an overwhelming 27 percent of West Bengal’s population, is her biggest electoral asset. It will cushion her from anti-incumbency and even Hindu consolidation if it comes to pass. Her remarks on Thursday were clearly made keeping the humungous Muslim vote in mind.

Importantly, Rahul has completely won the hearts of Muslim across India, despite their compulsion to vote for regional parties in various states. Muslims know that if there is one party which will never join hands with the BJP, it is the Congress. Of course, communists too won’t. But in Bengal, where communists are unfortunately a spent force, the Trinamool Congress stands to win the goodwill of Muslims by toeing Rahul’s anti-Modi line. And Mamata knows that better than most.

(SNM Abdi is an independent journalist specialising in India’s foreign policy and domestic politics.)

Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.