Parties calculate political permutations for the West Bengal elections

The challenger Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has prescribed for itself a ‘Formula 23’ to conquer West Bengal in the assembly polls in April-May 2021.

The incumbent Trinamool Congress (TMC) believes it would survive the 10-year anti-incumbency on the back of the social welfare schemes of the Mamata Banerjee government.

However, Banerjee and her strategists are aware any hopes to avoid a defeat at the hands of the BJP six months from now rest on her one-time arch rival, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front.

If the BJP has ‘Formula 23’, one can call the TMC’s to be ‘Formula 12 percent’. Anything below a 12 percent vote share for the Left Front and the Congress alliance in the assembly polls would make the election too close for comfort for the TMC.

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The BJP’s ‘Formula 23’ is not merely a 23-point ‘to do’ list that Union home minister Amit Shah and party chief JP Nadda have set for BJP workers to follow from now to election day.

The figure is also a reminder that the party needs to reach out to the Scheduled Castes (SCs) in the state if it is to at repeat its performance of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Significantly, the SCs in Bengal comprise 23.5 percent of the population, and the Scheduled Tribes another 5.8 percent.

It isn’t that these communities will vote en bloc for the BJP. The TMC also has its share of influence among the SCs, some of whom are also known as the namashudras.

But the BJP believes substantial numbers of these two communities voting for it could potentially neutralise the 27 percent Muslim population for the TMC. The Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM, after its success in neighbouring Bihar, has announced it will contest the West Bengal polls, which queers the pitch for the TMC and also the Congress.

The Banerjee-led government has bolstered its efforts since the Lok Sabha polls to win over SC community leaders, such as the Matuas that had migrated from Bangladesh.

Shah has been doing his bit, particularly with symbolic gestures such as eating at the home of an SC party worker. Although Bengali society does not suffer from the kind of untouchability and discriminatory commensality prevalent in some of the north Indian states.

The BJP’s success in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, where its vote share increased from 16.8 percent in 2014 to 40.25 percent, and helped it win 18 of the state’s 42-Lok Sabha seats, was a result of two factors.

The traditional Left and Congress vote collapsed, consolidating in favour of the BJP. It was a result of mass exodus of their ground level leaders to the BJP for protection to save themselves from the violence perpetrated by TMC workers on them during the 2018 panchayat polls.

The BJP, thanks to years of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) work among backward communities in the state, has made deep inroads among the Dalits.

The ‘Operation Barga’ land reforms of the Left Front governments had helped these communities get ownership of the land they tilled, and they had remained loyal to the Left for decades; but are now attracted to the BJP’s divisive promise of evicting ‘illegal immigrants’ from Bangladesh residing in the state.

This is where the TMC and Banerjee are hopeful that the Left, in alliance with the Congress, put up a better show by not only recovering some of their core support base but also in the process split the anti-incumbency votes against the state government.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha, the TMC led in 157 of the state’s 294 assembly constituencies, while the BJP led in 126. The Congress led in nine, but the CPI(M) in nil.

However, if the Congress and the CPI(M) had contested in an alliance, they could have led in at least 16 assembly constituencies. The Left Front’s vote share was nearly seven percent, and the Congress’ a bit over five percent.

The arithmetic for the 2021 assembly polls is that if the two, as part of a pre-poll alliance, manage 12 percent vote share, the TMC will just about sail through.

This is why the BJP’s Bengal leadership is busy being dismissive of the Left and the Congress alliance, even terming it the TMCs ‘B team’, and asking people not to waste their votes on these parties.

There is also confusion within the Left ranks. The CPI(M) believes it has suffered because of its alliance with the Congress, and complains that while it could ensure transfer of its votes to Congress candidates, the Congress would fail to reciprocate the favour.

Within the Left, Dipankar Bhattacharya, the chief of the CPI(Marxist-Liberation), upbeat after its success in Bihar, has said the principal enemy of the Left in Bengal should be the BJP, and not the TMC.

The CPI(M), meanwhile, is still confused on whether it should declare the TMC, at whose hands it has suffered, the bigger enemy or the BJP.

Archis Mohan is a senior journalist. Views are personal.