- BJP plans to target Trinamool workers lacking loyalty to Abhishek Banerjee in Bengal
- The party will highlight dynastic politics involving Mamata Banerjee and her nephew
- BJP aims to avoid defectors, focusing instead on strengthening grassroots cadre support
Delhi - won. Bihar - won. Next up, West Bengal.
The BJP's formidable election-winning machinery survived another round of voter fraud charges this month and resumed its eastward trundle, aiming for Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress.
Bengal will vote in March-April next year and the BJP, sources told NDTV Monday, has moved on from celebrating a landslide win in Bihar to plotting (yet) another bid to oust didi from Kolkata.
But to do so, sources said, the BJP's main focus will not be on Mamata Banerjee, or at least not exclusively so. Instead, it will target Trinamool workers with no real loyalty to Abhishek Banerjee.
Banerjee is her nephew and a three-time Lok Sabha MP from Kolkata's Diamond Harbour. The idea is to cut the party's ground-level support. That does not, though, mean the Trinamool boss will be ignored.
On the contrary, the Bharatiya Janata Party will also focus on the issue of dynastic politics - a favourite stick with which to beat the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family - with pot shots at her nephew.
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banejree (R) and her nephew, Abhishek Banerjee (File)..
A BJP leader privy to the strategy said Banerjee's 'imposition' on voters - of her nephew as a future chief minister - underlined the shift in a state where 'dynastic politics' was never the norm.
Banerjee, it was pointed out, does not command the degree of loyalty his aunt does and that could play into the opposition party's hands, allowing it to steal on-ground resources.
Focus on workers, not turncoats
Ahead of the 2021 state election the BJP persuaded key Trinamool leaders to switch sides, including the biggest fish of them all - Suvendu Adhikari, who was upset by Abhishek Banerjee's rise to power.
Mamata Banerjee's former right-hand man, Adhikari repaid his new employer by defeating the Chief Minister in the iconic Nandigram constituency.
RECAP | Mamata Banerjee Loses To Suvendu Adhikari In Nandigram, Will Go To Court
This time, however, BJP leaders told NDTV there are no plans onboard defectors.
One reason is this is not expected to significantly increase the party's vote share.
Trinamool party workers, on the other hand, are almost no-risk additions; more cadre means the BJP can campaign harder, longer, and more efficiently, but the party's existing political leaders will not be put out by having to adjust (and potentially lose seats) to newcomers.
The caste game
The BJP and its allies, including Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United got the caste arithmetic absolutely spot-on in Bihar, fielding a combination of candidates from various marginalised communities and backward castes to pick up over 200 of the state's 243 seats.
READ | BJP, JDU Bihar Clean Sweep Powered By Caste Matrix Boost
In Bengal a different formula will be needed since caste politics is not a dominant issue and polarisation is not as widespread as other states. The BJP, therefore, will balance regional and religious equations.
The Hindu-Muslim question
Approximately 30 per cent of Bengal's population is Muslim but their votes are considered dominant in only 30-40 seats, or less than 14 per cent of the total number in the House.
The Trinamool, the BJP has reasoned, receives a large number of votes from Muslim-dominated areas, but because these are concentrated in so few seats it does not materially affect the count of seats won, which is the final arbiter of an election result, only votes polled.
To counter, the BJP hopes to benefit from polarisation among Hindu voters in other regions, and is in a strong position on this front, a party leader, who did not want to be named, told NDTV.
The 'outsider' issue
This has been a key issue in recent years, with the BJP targeting Mamata Banerjee over the porous border with Bangladesh and accusing her of looking the other way as illegal migrants cross over and add to her voter base.
READ | Mamata Banerjee Claims Her Constituency "Being Filled With Outsiders"
The Trinamool has criticised its rival as 'outsiders' in the state, alluding to Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah's home turf, as 'anti-Bengal' forces.
The numbers
Over the last four elections (2 state + 2 federal) the BJP has won more than 100 seats.
This suggests the party has a foot hold in in the state and plans to concentrate on these areas for a strong start to its goal - between 160 and 170 seats.
Of course, caution in candidate selection is a must for this target to be reached, which circles back to the point about turncoats and defectors not being offered much of a second look.
The performance
The BJP is strengthening, slowly but surely, its position in Bengal.
It is in a particularly strong position in the northern and southern districts, where its vote share is also increasing. In fact, the BJP's best Bengal show (in terms of seats and vote share) so far was the 2019 Lok Sabha election; it won 18 seats and secured 40.25 per cent of the vote.
In the 2021 state election, the party won 77 seats and 38.14 per cent of the vote.
There was a dip in this year's federal election. The party lost six of its 12 seats.
By contrast, the Trinamool's best Assembly vote share is just shy of 48 per cent, meaning the BJP will need find an additional six per cent of votes to win this poll.
And this is a major challenge that will test the BJP's organisational capabilities and efficiency.
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