13:46 (IST)
West Bengal Assembly Election 2021 LATEST Updates
Sisir Adhikari joins BJP
Veteran TMC MP Sisir Adhikari on Sunday joined the BJP on Sunday, reports said. Sisir is the father of TMC turncoat Suvendu Adhikari, who had joined the saffron party a few months ago.
The patriarch of the Adhikari family — which wields considerable influence in Bengal's Purba Medinipur district — said that he switched camp because "the leaders of the ruling party left him with no other option".
Sisir, who attended Union Home Minister Amit Shah's rally in Egra on Sunday, also chanted 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans, India Today reported."Save Bengal from atrocities, we are with you, our family is with you. Jai Siya Ram, Jai Bharat," the report quoted him as saying.
13:31 (IST)
Assam Assembly Election 2021 LATEST Updates
NDA will 'ensure' peace and stability in Assam, says Narendra Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed an election rally in Assam's Bokakhat on Sunday.
He asserted that the NDA government will continue to ensure peace and stability in Assam, if voted back to power in the upcoming polls.
"NDA government saved rhinos and sent poachers behind bars. Kaziranga was freed from encroachers," he added.
In the last 5 years, Assam has witnessed a growth in forest cover. It increases the opportunities for tourism and economic activities.
— BJP (@BJP4India) March 21, 2021
We want India to be included in one of the leading nations in natural, spiritual, cultural and heritage tourisms, and Assam has all of this. pic.twitter.com/EpBR7cR8Wb
Assembly Election 2021 LATEST Updates: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed an election rally in Assam's Bokakhat on Sunday.
He asserted that the NDA government will continue to ensure peace and stability in Assam, if voted back to power in the upcoming polls.
"NDA government saved rhinos and sent poachers behind bars. Kaziranga was freed from encroachers," he added.
Riding on anti-incumbency and identity politics, BJP is sniffing a chance to capture the 'final frontier" and fulfil its long-cherished dream of coming to power in West Bengal, after being on the sidelines of its politics for decades.
The stakes are high for the saffron camp as the victory in Bengal will fulfill the long-cherished mission of expanding its ideological footprint in the 'trophy state', which till a decade ago was an impregnable red citadel.
Besides, a victory would also put the saffron camp in a better position to offset the anti-incumbency in states where it had bagged the maximum number of seats in the last two Lok Sabha polls.
Interestingly the party is in a win-win situation even if it loses the state election, which begins on March 27. This is because it will then have the chance to be in a better position to improve its tally of Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2024 by being able to avoid anti-incumbency and
establish itself as a formidable political force by relegating the traditional Left and the Congress to the sidelines.
Issues of anti-incumbency, sharp communal polarisation, alleged large scale infiltration coupled with the absence of a strong opposition had helped the saffron camp increase its vote share by ten times in just eight years leading the party to win 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in 2019.
On the flip side weak organisation, ongoing insider-outsider debate and lack of a CM face against the redoubtable Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee could well be its Achilles heels when it is at a "striking distance of coming to power," party insiders said.
BJP's vote share has grown from a mere four per cent in 2011, when Banerjee came to power, to a whopping 40 percent in 2019. The party is confident of snatching power in the state and has set a target of 200 pluse seats in the 294-member assembly despite being branded as a party of "outsiders" for its over dependence on its central leaders and for "not being in sync with the culture in Bengal".
"Winning West Bengal is a long-cherished dream and our party's mission since the days of Jan Sangh. It will be an important feat to expand our ideological footprint in a state that has eluded us very long. Bengal is the most important frontier in the east," West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh said.
Echoing him, senior BJP leader Tathagata Roy feels that if the party comes to power in West Bengal it will be more of an ideological victory than a political one, as the state was always considered a communist bastion.
Ironically for the party it was never reckoned as a potent political force in the state despite being the land of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, the founder of Bhartiya Jana Sangh which is BJP's forerunner.
Although opposition Congress and the Left Front have pinned the blame on TMC for the growth of the saffron camp in the state, which has 30 per cent Muslim electorate, a quick look at Bengal's socio-political history shows how the Hindu right wielded considerable influence in violence-scarred West Bengal in the aftermath of the Partition.
During the first assembly polls in 1952, the Hindu Mahasabha along with Bharatiya Jana Sangh had won 13 seats and garnered around eight per cent of the total votes. With Mookerjee's death in 1953 and the rise of the Left in the late '50s the state saw a sharp decline in the
political clout of the Hindu rightist organisations, which were relegated to the fringes and managed to win only one seat in the 1967 and 1971 elections.
After the BJP was launched in 1980, the saffron party hardly had any presence in the state and was ridiculed as the 'Party of Burrabazaar', Kolkata's trading hub which is dominated by people of the northern states.
During the 34-year-long Left rule in the state, BJP failed to make a breakthrough except in 1998 and 1999. During those two years the party in alliance with the then fledgling TMC, managed to win two Lok Sabha seats and an assembly seat during a bypoll.
But things started looking up for BJP after TMC came to power by defeating the Left Front in 2011. The slow and steady decline of the Left and Congress was directly proportional to the rise of BJP.
The saffron party first clinched 18 per cent votes and two seats on its own in 2014 followed by three assembly seats in the 2016 assembly polls and 11 per cent votes.
"If you look at the vote share in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the overall vote share of 43 per cent of TMC did not go down. It was the decline of the Left from 29 per cent to seven percent and Congress from six to four per cent that propelled the growth of the BJP," a senior BJP leader said.
According to state BJP sources, apart from the rise in anti-incumbency in Bengal, the "appeasement politics" of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have helped the party to position itself as the primary challenger of TMC in the state.
The BJP has over the years expanded its support base in tribal-dominated Junglemahal and in border areas that have a sizeable population of refugees from Bangladesh, especially the Matuas and Namshudras, which till few years back were considered the strongholds of the Left and the TMC.
Increase in RSS' activities and its affiliates in rural Bengal have also helped the BJP to strengthen its support base.
"Apart from the misrule of the TMC, rise of religious and political forces like Indian Secular Front of Peerzada Abbas Siddiqui will help in the consolidation of Hindu votes in the state," a senior BJP leader said.
The saffron party, which left its doors wide open for leaders from other parties as part of its poll strategy, reaped dividends by inducting several leaders, elected represetatives and cadres including political heavyweights like Suvendu Adhikari and Rajib Banerjee and created a
perception of the TMC being a "sinking ship".
But there are odds stacked up against the saffron camp too as most of the reasons are intertwined with factors which are considered either its strength or strategy to defeat TMC.
The unchecked induction of leaders from various parties has led to infighting within the organisation, protests over ticket distribution and has diluted the party's "fight" against the corruption as several new recruits have graft charges against them.
The BJP's candidate list of 280 candidates has more than 70 turncoats and the party is now facing a tough time putting its house in order.
"The infighting over ticket distribution has not only brought disrepute to the party but is also a matter of loss of face before the polls and might have a cascading effect during the polls," another BJP leader said.
March 21, 2021 at 01:36PM
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